


where the world goes by like the humid air

by zero_base



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Convenience Store, Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, But that's what they think they are, Canon Typical Irreverence, Except they don't want to be friends with benefits, Friends With Benefits, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Shane is an idiot, mentions of depression, ryan is an idiot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-05-24 15:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14957429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zero_base/pseuds/zero_base
Summary: Shane is trying to get his PhD whilst supporting himself by working nights in a convenience store. Where he meets Ryan who is also trying to get his PhD... by hunting ghosts. It all makes sense in the end.Shane shrugs. “You didn’t seem super comfortable with the Ryan Bergara Fan Club hanging around.”“They aren’t my fan club.” Ryan says, looking up at Shane.“I bet they have badges.” Shane says.“Shut up, Shane.”“T Shirts. All kinds of merch with your face on-”“I gave one talk to their society and now I’m on their mailing list and they keep asking me back!”“I bet they have baseball caps with ‘I Believe in Ryan’ written on them.” Shane says, laughing.“Fuck you.”“Hey, I’d buy one.” Shane says.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from 'Ana Ng' by 'They Might be Giants'
> 
> I work in a convenience store. It isn't degrading but it does kind of suck ass. Be nice to your convenience store workers you don't know what they might be going through. They may also be cryptids so. You know. Don't piss off a potential werewolf.
> 
> Dedicated to my girlfriend who is right here next to me.

It is four hours until the end of Shane’s shift.

Working nights at a rest stop gas station and convenience store wasn’t the most scintillating side career Shane could have chosen. But the pay was terrible and the coffee was free and terrible and you know, there weren’t _that many_ choices open to someone who could only work nights.

The need for an extra job had arisen thanks to Shane’s apparently insane desire to get his PhD during a world economic downturn. Economic depressions make things like wanting a further education seem frivolous and arrogant, so Shane has to duel with capitalism and clip on a name badge.  His postgrad teaching allowance was pitiful and barely kept him in the bad kind of ramen, so he’d turned to craigslist and got himself three spectacularly shitty eight pm til eight am shifts at the Gas N Gulp just off the interstate.

Shane doesn’t know if the owners of the Gas N Gulp are aware of the barely even double entendre of the name of the store. But surely they must know that Shane’s customers are usually truckers fuelling up and the sex workers who trade off the truckers, and pop into the store to heat up Hot Pockets in the dangerous microwave.

In fact, the only person Shane has spoken to since midnight has been Gem (real name Gael) who only came in to heat his cold feet up on the storage heater Shane keeps near the cash register.

“The lighting in here is terrible.” Gem says, frowning into his compact before smudging more eyeliner under his spectacularly made up eyes.

“Yeah, I find it rather punishing.” Shane agrees.

Gem mock glares at him. “You only need it to read your dusty ass books. How’s all of that going?”

‘All of that’ apparently means Shane’s thesis.

“It’s… going.” Shane says, without much conviction.

Shane is still plugging away with his work, but he doesn’t have the same interest in it that he used to.  Perhaps he isn’t actually cut out for academia. Or perhaps he’s just tired. Working at the Gas N Gulp on top of his studies _and_ still teaching classes was fairly exhausting. Or perhaps…

 “Oh, sweetheart. You need to get laid.” Gem says, giving Shane’s shoulder a sympathetic pat.

Shane pulls a face. “Yeah.”

It has been a while since he even made out with someone, and lightly flirting with Gem (who would eat him alive and probably charge for the honour) doesn’t count. He guesses he just wants something… more. In basically every aspect of his life. More happiness, more meaning…

 _Totally achievable; you’re not setting unrealistic goals at all there_ , Shane thinks. The voice in his head is sarcastic, but then the voice in his head is always sarcastic.

Next week is Spring Break and Shane is hoping that time off from school and a more relaxed schedule will help him get his groove back. Maybe just getting some proper sleep will restore his balance.

Shane pours himself and Gem a cup of the super caffeinated, incredibly over brewed coffee that is permanently broiling away on the hot plate behind the counter. He adds creamer to Gem’s until it is almost drinkable and Gem sits on the counter to drink it.

Gem sighs gratefully as he wraps his hands around the mug. “If only you made more than ten bucks an hour, Shane Madej, and could keep me in the style to which I’ve become accustomed.” He bats his eyelashes, a sure sign he’s joking around.

“Excuse you, I make $11.50. And you’ll always come crawling back for Hot Pockets.” Shane jokes back.

Gem laughs. “You know, I am getting hungry…”

Shane retrieves a Five Cheese Pizza pocket from the frozen aisle and shoves it in the crappy microwave. The machine crackles and spits into life and then begins its terrifying rhythmic whirring.

“God, that thing sounds like it’s possessed.” Gem says.

“Yeah, I’m kind of expecting it to give me a brain tumour.”

The microwave that Lovecraft built gives a final, ominous crackling pop just before the buzzer goes.

“On me.” Shane insists when Gem starts to search for his money.

Gem smirks. “Honey. Please. I make a hell of a lot more than you.”

“True, but also consider that I have been stealing these things from here forever and they have yet to fire me. Put your money away, sir.”  Shane says.

Gem’s still laughing around his mouthful of boiling hot cheese about the fact that Shane just steals from the Gas N Gulp constantly, when the door gets pushed open again.

Two guys walk in; one is fairly tall, white, and bearded and the other is smaller and … hot. He’s got big dark eyes and light brown skin and he’s kind of obviously ripped under his baggy hoodie. Shane hopes he isn’t staring too much at the Hot Guy. Not that he’d notice, as he’s staring rather plaintively at the Bearded Guy’s back.

 Bearded Guy makes a beeline for the chip aisle and Shane thinks ‘ah’. The only other people who came to the Gas N Gulp during the dead of night were those who had spent the evening getting baked, only to realise they had no snacks once the munchies kicked in. Bearded Guy stares at the Cheetos selection and Hot Guy stares at Bearded Guy until Bearded Guy lets out a gusty sigh and turns his head towards Hot Guy.

“I’m sorry.” Hot Guy says. He sounds sincere and also kind of worried.

Bearded Guy makes a mildly irritated sound.

Gem flicks a glance in Shane’s direction before turning his attention back to the night’s entertainment. Shane’s trying to work out the vibe- it seems a little like a lover’s tiff but, in his opinion, Hot Guy is insanely out of Bearded Guy’s league. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Bearded Guy grabs a couple of bags of Flamin’ Hot.

“I just-” Hot Guy begins, only to be cut off

“We’ll talk about it later.” Bearded Guy says. Then he sighs again “You want something, Ryan?”

Hot Guy’s - Ryan’s- eyes widen a little.

“I mean-” Ryan begins, stammering, before Bearded Guy interrupts him again.

“I meant like food. Not- other stuff.” Bearded Guy looks over to Shane and Gem. “Don’t make a scene.”

Ryan looks bewildered and kind of hurt and Shane’s stomach does something weird. He doesn’t even know the guy, and yet-

Ryan unenthusiastically picks up a bag of cheese popcorn whilst Bearded Guy grabs a six pack of the terrifying, ex-Soviet state energy drinks that Gas N Gulp inexplicably stock, and the pair of them make their way over to the cash register. Gem is still sitting on the counter, kicking his heels and eating the rest of his Hot Pocket, openly ogling Ryan and Bearded Guy. Shane tries to pretend he hasn’t been paying attention to them as he rings up their purchases.

“That’ll be $13.70.”

Bearded Guy gets his wallet out and begrudgingly shoves twenty bucks at Shane.

“There are reason why these places are always so expensive?”  Bearded Guy muses, as Shane hands him his change.

“Well, as the guy working the graveyard shift, I’m definitely the one who decides the mark up on everything in here.” Shane says, before taking a sip of his coffee.

Gem makes a noise that might be a snort of laughter, but also might be because he has burnt his mouth on molten cheese.

Bearded Guy smirks clearly irritated.

“Maybe if you were more polite to customers you wouldn’t be on the graveyard shift.”

Ok, so. Here’s the deal. Shane totally agrees that good customer service should be a thing. Helping little old ladies with their bags, asking exhausted parents how their day is going, letting someone who has clearly scraped down the back of their couch for change to buy food just _have their freaking tater tots for free_ \- Shane has done all of these things.

But he isn’t super enthused about being lectured on quality retail behaviour at 3:30am by some stoned guy who is looking down his nose at Shane for providing a service that is obviously needed. Also- neither of these guys seem stoned. The tell-tale herbal smell isn’t hanging around them, and they aren’t acting in the usual ways high people do; neither happy nor twitchy. Bearded Guy just seems pissed off and probably should not add more MSG, refined sugar, and former Eastern Block caffeine to that mix, and Ryan just seems- sad and kind of out of it. He’s staring listlessly at the little Sasquatch figurine taped to the take a penny leave a penny tray.

It may be that Ryan’s lost expression heavily influences what comes out of Shane’s mouth next.

“Yeah, but maybe I just get off on being a dick to dicks.”

Gem definitely snorts at that, and actually slaps Shane on the shoulder. Bearded Guy stares at him for a beat before grabbing his shit and mumbling something which sounds like “Fuck you asshole.”

Ryan blinks at Shane, lifting his big eyes to Shane’s face for the first time, and Shane- because apparently he is out of his tiny little mind this particular night- _winks_ at him.

Ryan blinks at him again and something that looks like the glimmer of the beginnings of a smile flits across his face. But, by that point, Bearded Guy has taken off towards the door and Ryan has no choice but to follow him.

“Oh, bye now!” Shane calls after them. Bearded Guy holds the door open for Ryan, and gives Shane the finger. The door swings shut behind them, and Shane can’t be a hundred percent certain, but he thinks Ryan may glance back through glass as they leave.

“Well, that was a fun interaction.” Shane declares.

Gem gives Shane a look. A look that is altogether too knowing.

“Mmm.” He agrees.

“What?” Shane asks.

Gem nods towards the door. “Perkiest I’ve seen you in months. It’s nice. You were starting to fade, honey.”

Before Shane can get him to elaborate on that, Gem hauls himself off the counter and lands bouncily on his Cuban heels.

“I’m gonna go make some money.” He says, running a hand through his dark hair.

“Be safe.” Shane says, mostly needlessly. Gem keeps a switchblade in both of his boots, and once demonstrated some of his martial arts skills on Shane. Shane’s shoulder still twitches in remembered agony whenever he thinks about that.

“I’ll text you!” Gem calls, before blowing him a kiss and vanishing into the night.

There’s still three and a half hours of Shane’s shift left. He pours himself another coffee and sets about checking dates on milk cartons to see what needs discounting . _It’s the glamour of the job_ _that keeps me coming back_ , he thinks. But he finds himself whistling to the Modest Mouse album he’s put on anyway, and for some reason he feels pretty good when he clocks out at eight.

 

***

Shane doesn’t really expect to see Ryan nor The Bearded Dickhead ever again, so it surprises him when they show up on his very next shift.

It’s a Friday night/ Saturday morning shift, so Shane isn’t expecting to see Gem at all. He’s received his usual emoji filled text from him but weekends are always a busy for Gem; he has a lot of regulars. Shane is set for a long and boring night, which he really should use to catch up on some serious reading for college, but will probably just burn through the Le Guin novel he picked up from a yard sale he went to a couple of weeks ago instead.

So that’s what he does from midnight when the crowds of students, buying beer and chips on the way to some start-of-Spring-Break-rager, decline. He has a few customers during the night-the usual truckers, a new dad buying baby formula and Pepto Bismol, and a group of very stoned guys who bought nearly $60 worth of snacks, as well as three copies of GQ because Dave Grohl was on the cover.

It had been a fairly uneventful night in Shane’s career as a convenience store worker- until it hits 5am and the door gets pushed open. Shane has to fight down the urge to smile when he sees Ryan appear. Fortunately, the urge is quelled significantly when he spots Bearded Dickhead walking in behind him.

Shane tries to concentrate on his book but he’s hyperaware of them both. Which means he can hear the entire heated conversation they are having in the chip aisle.

“I’ll get this; you got the food last night.” Ryan begins, his tone falsely bright when addressing his friend. A few seconds of silence pass before Bearded Dickhead speaks.

“I can’t do this anymore.” Bearded Dickhead says, flatly.

Shane can see Ryan flinch and then freeze out of the corner of his eye.

“It just isn’t- it isn’t worth it for me.” Bearded Dickhead continues, and Shane kind of wants to pitch his book across the store at the asshole.

Ryan is still frozen. “But I- we-”

“This just takes up so much time, Ryan! And it isn’t fun.”

Ryan finally unfreezes. “But you can’t just leave!” He says, plaintively.

Bearded Dickhead shrugs, and looks slightly regretful, but also like he’s totally made up his mind.

“Yeah, well. I don’t want to stay. I can’t handle it, alright? I can’t handle all of your shit, when I’ve got my own stuff to deal with.”

Ryan is silent for a moment. “I- I guess I understand.”

Bearded Dickhead glances towards Shane at the counter and pulls a face.

“Hey, get me some Cheetos; I’ll be in the car. I’m not dealing with that guy again.”

Shane thinks that has to be like the coldest fucking break up he has ever witnessed. ‘Hey, you’re too much to handle, and you’re not fun, but get me some Cheetos, huh?’ Shane doesn’t even hide his contempt for Bearded Dickhead, flipping off his back as he leaves.

The door swings shut again, and it’s just Ryan and Shane left in the store.  

“You O.K there, buddy?” Shane asks when Ryan doesn’t move for about thirty seconds.

Ryan startles out of his reverie and blinks over at Shane.

“Uh… yeah.”

“You sure? I couldn’t help overhearing…” Shane puts his book down.

Ryan picks up the Cheetos, and heads over to the checkout with a defeated vibe.

“It’s fine.” Ryan is back to staring at the little Sasquatch figurine again.

Ryan doesn’t seem too cut up yet, but that’s probably the shock of having been dumped, extremely early in the morning, at a convenience store. That’s bound to throw anyone for a loop.

“Yeah, well. He seems like a dick, anyway.” Shane says.

Ryan looks up at Shane. “Oh- you’re the guy Brent had a fight with last time.”

“Yep. I’m super memorable, clearly.” Shane starts ringing up the Cheetos trying not to feel disappointed. Because it would be stupid to feel disappointed that Ryan didn’t remember him.

“No- it’s not you. I’ve barely slept this week.” Ryan says.

Shane takes in the dark circles under Ryan’s eyes and general air of exhaustion.

Ryan lets out a little choking laugh. “God, I need to put a reminder in my phone that Brent said all that- I bet I will have forgotten by- tomorrow? Later today?” The laugh gets a little more hysterical.

Shane pours Ryan a cup of coffee and shoves it across the counter at him.

“Drink that.”

Ryan blinks at the cup, and does as he’s told, his eyes widening as the first rush of caffeine hits him. Shane knows that technically it should take about twenty minutes for it to truly have any effect, but the coffee in the pot at the Gas N Gulp has been constantly percolating for maybe twenty years, and therefore has attained magical properties.

“Oh my God, fuck- I needed that.” Ryan says and gives Shane a smile.

Ryan has a very good smile. It’s extremely distracting.

“Any time.” Shane says. _Smooth_ his brain supplies.

Ryan’s smile spreads, and then gets checked, shrinking inwards again, and Shane thinks it’s one of the most heart-breaking things he has ever seen. Shane is honestly impressed with himself over how stupidly dramatic his crush on this guy is.

“I probably won’t be back around here again.” Ryan says, and the lost expression returns to his face.

Shane doesn’t want to pry. Actually that’s a lie; he totally wants to pry. But, he also just saw the poor guy get dumped; he probably knows too much about him already.

“Wel,l if you ever are… I’ll be here. Selling really shitty snackfoods at a hugely inflated price in the small hours of the morning.” Shane says. And before he can stop himself, he fucking winks at Ryan again.

Ryan’s smile returns. “The winking is kinda creepy, dude.”

“Yeah, I know but once you start doing it, you basically can’t stop. It’s like a nervous creepy tic.” Shane shrugs.

“Oh, I totally get that. My first semester at college, every time I gave a presentation I would do a weird laugh at the end of every Powerpoint slide. One guy even started doing it along with me.” Ryan leans on the counter holding his mug of coffee smiling his distracting smile at Shane.

“Wow, that’s a dick move.” Shane says.

“Well, it got me to stop. Or, at least, become so self-conscious about it that I became too scared to do it.”

“Ah, behavioural conditioning. I’d probably need an electric shock every time I winked at someone to get me to stop.” Shane mimes winking and then getting jolted with electricity and Ryan starts laughing.

 “Yeah, but one too many shocks and you’d just end up twitching and winking randomly, anyway. What would be the point?” Ryan says wheezing a little.

Shane laughs and is just about to offer Ryan another cup of coffee, when Ryan’s phone chimes.  He roots through his pockets and glances at the lit up screen, wincing. Shane figures Fucking Brent is tired of waiting for his Cheetos.

“I better go… how much do I owe you?” Ryan asks.

Shane fishes ten bucks out of his own pocket and shoves it in the cash register.

“Nothing.” He says.

Ryan splutters. “Dude you, gave me free coffee, you can’t just-”

“I don’t know what to tell you man, it’s already been paid for.” Shane shrugs.

“But-”

“The register is closed, pal.” Shane says.

“You… that’s really sweet of you, thank you.” Ryan says, clearly realising that arguing with Shane about this isn’t going to work. He flashes Shane his million watt smile again, before grabbing his stuff.

“See you around.” Shane says, and Ryan gives him a little wave before heading out into the cold dawn air.

It’s only after Shane has come down from the high of being called ‘sweet’, that he realises he actually isn’t ever going to see Ryan again. And he didn’t get his number.

***

Shane wakes up mid-morning to his pillow vibrating. He fumbles for his insistent phone and swipes at the screen. He figures it must be an emergency- his parents know his shifts and know not to call him the morning after one. His friends also know that Shane is basically unreachable until the afternoons. T.J, his enigmatic roommate, has learnt to tread softly in the apartment, lest he wake Shane. No one would call him at this time unless they absolutely had to.

“Hello?” He says, half sitting up, blearily reaching for his glasses.

“Hi Shane, it’s Sally.” A bright voice chimes down the line.

 _Oh, Jesus fucking wept_ , Shane thinks. Sally is his supervisor at the Gas N Gulp. Inasmuch as Shane is supervised. Which is usually that he gets called to go to a review every six months, in which Sally smiles at him unwaveringly, and asks him where he sees his career with Gas N Gulp going, and Shane tries to find a creative way of saying ‘ _hopefully nowhere_ ’.

 “Is everything alright?” Shane asks, wondering why the hell is being called less than four hours since the end of his last shift.

“Actually, we have had a little incident down here- Tyrone has had an unfortunate accident.” Sally’s tone is chipper in a way that suggests psychopathy.

“What- is he ok?” Shane asks. He likes Tyrone a lot, even if the guy does have a tendency to talk about sports constantly, and in a manner that suggests that Shane has the slightest clue about what he’s going on about.

“Oh, yes, he’ll be fine!” Sally says. And doesn’t elaborate.

“What happened?” Shane has visions of Tyrone walking across the lot in front of the Gas N Gulp with his headphones on, not hearing or seeing the eighteen wheeler heading towards him until the last second…

“Oh, he just got a little electrocuted, is all.” Sally says.

Shane blinks “He what now?”

“The microwave; he went to open it and it gave him a little shock. And some burns. But he’s fine! He’s in the hospital getting all fixed up.”

 _Jesus_ Shane thinks. Just a few hours ago he’d been joking with Ryan about getting electrocuted. This really isn’t funny, though. Tyrone has kids.

“The poor guy.” Shane says quietly.

“Yes, well. We do have a little bit of a staffing problem due to Tyrone’s accident so… Bill has offered to cover your night shifts, if you would be willing to take on Tyrone’s three 8am til 8pm shifts this week. Seeing as its Spring Break, your teaching schedule shouldn’t get in the way for once.” Sally says, briskly.

Shane shakes his head. “Uh… I don’t think-”

“Or, if you don’t want to do that, I guess you could stick to your normal time and we’ll launch a little investigation into why so much frozen stock seems to go missing during your shifts at Gas N Gulp.” Sally says, sweetly.

Shane hears the cage door swing shut behind him. He has been trapped; no doubt about it. His Hot Pocket racket was bound to be rumbled one day.

“You know what, Sally, I can totally cover Tyrone this week.” Shane says.

“Excellent! You’re in tomorrow at eight in the morning. Thank you, so much, Shane.” Sally rings off.

Shane drops his phone and groans. Now he’s being denied them, he realises how much he likes his quiet night shifts. Day shifts in a school break mean cranky families gassing up on their way to explore nature (in a huge SUV that will also contribute to the destruction of said nature) , weird old men who hang around the magazine racks trying to get a look at Playboy, and teens. So many teens trying to buy alcohol or glue or rolling papers.

At least his first day is a Sunday. Sundays tend to be quieter. He rolls over and texts T.J and the rest of his friends that he won’t be able to make it to breakfast tomorrow. He quickly gets a round of frowny faced emojis and ‘you suck Madej’s’. He sends a quick text explaining why he has to work Sunday, which shuts most of his whining friends up.

He shuts his eyes and tries to go back to sleep, but it just isn’t happening. He gets up and shuffles to the living room, where T.J is silently swearing at his video game. Shane throws himself down on the couch next to him.

“Sorry about your job. And that guy.” T.J says, pausing his game and pulling his headphones off.

Shane shrugs. “Yeah, well…”

“Still, it might work out for your recharging plan. You’ll be on a better sleep schedule.” T.J, ever the pragmatist, points out.

“I guess.”

“And you can make it to drinks tomorrow night before I head to Tijuana.” T.J says, elbowing Shane in the ribs. “You have a night free to hook up with someone!”

Shane can’t help but think of Ryan’s smile. Which is completely stupid.

“What’s that look for? Did you meet someone?” T.J asks.

“No.” Shane insists.

“Who is she? I mean he- they?” T.J is cool with Shane’s whole deal, but he sometimes forgets, thanks to the heteronormativity of the world they inhabit, that Shane is bi. Which is actually good right now, because Shane fully intends to distract him with semantics.

“Who is they?” Shane repeats and T.J glares.

“Alright, screw you, man. I will take no interest in your life.”

“Oh, thank God.” Shane says. Shane expects T.J to start his game up again but instead it stays paused and his roommate turns towards him looking serious.

“You’ll be OK whilst I’m away right? Like you aren’t going to go insane and paint the apartment black or…” T.J lets the ‘or’ hang in the air.

They both know that Shane hasn’t exactly been totally great these last few months. Nothing in particular really; it’s just everything has started to feel more of a struggle. Stuff that used to be fun, like his studies, has gotten a lot less rewarding. Work isn’t hard but it isn’t fulfilling. He hangs out with his friends, but he doesn’t want to burden them with his shit and he knows that he’s creating distance between them… none of it amounts to anything particularly good.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Hey, I get to walk around naked when you aren’t here, it’s frankly a dream come true.”

T.J’s eyes narrow. “Dude-”

Shane sighs. “Yeah, I’ll be OK. You’re not going to come back to anything… bad alright? I’m not- feeling amazing, but I’m not rock bottom, I’m just. Getting on with it. And I don’t intend to- stop.”

There’s a pause and then T.J pats his leg.

“If you sit on this couch naked, I’m burning it, dude.” T.J says, but he looks more relaxed, smiling at Shane a little and Shane realises, with a sudden rush of warmth towards T.J, that he’d obviously been trying to find a way of addressing Shane’s Issues for a while.

“I’m gonna make waffles, you want some?” Shane asks.

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” T.J asks, before turning back to his game.

***

Shane’s Sunday shift _fucking sucks_. The family groups are multitude, and if bad moods could be turned into energy, he thinks he could power the lights of Las Vegas for ten years off of just a handful of his customers. One kid has to be dragged out of the store by his mother after pouring an entire blue Gatorade on his sister. One woman nearly has a meltdown because Gas N Gulp has sold out of bugspray. One guy does have a meltdown because Shane refuses to refund his empty packet of Doritos, which he had eaten in the store and not paid for in the first place. Also, everyone is pissed that the microwave isn’t working, and if Shane expected to get any sympathy for the reason why the microwave isn’t working, then he is sorely mistaken. Apparently ‘my friend is in the hospital and I can’t see him until tomorrow because he was so badly injured, he got sedated’ isn’t good enough when people are being denied Bagel Bites.

By seven pm the crowds have thinned and Shane keeps mouthing screams every time he ducks beneath the counter to grab plastic bags for groceries. He knows he promised to head out with T.J and the gang for drinks, but he honestly just wants to go home and stand in the shower for hours where people can’t be rude to him.

And then the door opens, and Ryan walks in, and Shane’s heart lifts considerably.

Ryan walks towards the counter, pausing only to grab some Trail Mix. He looks determined and also kind of sweaty.

“Hey, dude, I thought you said you wouldn’t be back around here?” Shane hopes he sounds casual, and not like an excited puppy.

“Yeah, well. I changed my mind. I have unfinished business. Can I fill my Thermos please? I’ll pay for the coffee this time.” Ryan doesn’t smile at Shane and his tone is not warm and chatty, like it was on Saturday morning.

“Sure.” Shane says and tells himself that it is completely stupid to be so gone on a guy he doesn’t know. It’s the dumbest thing to be disappointed that Ryan doesn’t want to be his friend.

Ryan silently watches Shane fill the Thermos with coffee.

“You want any creamer?” Shane asks.

Ryan shakes his head.

“That’ll be $8.65.” Shane says. He figures that will probably be the last thing he says to the guy.

Until Ryan tries to get out his wallet, and Shane notices that his hands are shaking so badly that he drops it on the floor.

“Are you ok, man?” Shane asks as Ryan crouches down to get his wallet.

“I’m fine.” Ryan says but he’s still crouching down, breathing heavily.

“Shit.” Shane says, sliding around the counter and crouching down next to Ryan, who is clearly having some kind of panic attack. His breathing is very tight and he’s shaking so much he ends up tipping himself over, so his palms are on the dirty floor.

Shane doesn’t know what to do, so he just repeats what he says to himself when things get too much.

“Breathe. You’re alright Ryan. It’s alright.” Shane says in what he hopes is a soothing tone. He tries placing a hand on Ryan’s back. His trembling lessens a little.

“Fuck.” Ryan says, gasping “I thought I could do this,- I thought-”

“Shh. It’s alright Ryan, you’re alright.” Shane repeats, rubbing Ryan’s back until Ryan manages to sit up.

“Can you stand up?” Shane asks. Ryan nods, and Shane helps him up and guides him to the chair behind the counter.

Ryan shoves his face in his hands. “This is embarrassing.” He says.

“We’ve all been there.” Shane says, popping the cap off a Coke bottle and offering it to Ryan “You need sugar.”

“You’re always there with the comforting beverages, huh?” Ryan says. When he takes the Coke his hands are, if not completely steady, at least not shaking as violently as before.

“That’s me.” Shane says and winks.

The wink startles a laugh from Ryan. He takes another sip of Coke.

“I just- I really need to do what I’m about to do because if I can’t then I’m a fucking failure and I’ve wasted two years and I just- shit-” Ryan is nearly hyperventilating again.

“Dude. Chill. What is it that’s so important? You’re not going to kill a guy, are you?” Shane asks.

Ryan’s eyes widen just as the door swings open admitting two teenaged boys into the air conditioned confines of Gas N Gulp.

“Just so you guys know, I’m not going to fall for your shitty, fake, out of state driver’s licences; I can tell neither of you need to shave. So, either buy some chips or fuck off.” Shane calls across to them as soon as they start walking towards the beer chiller.

The boys immediately stop in their tracks and turn back towards the door, shuffling awkwardly as they try to be the first one out of the building.

“You’re kind of scary.” Ryan remarks.

Shane smiles at him. “So, are you going to murder someone?”

“What? No!” Ryan says.

“Well, I dunno man, you seem pretty suspicious to me. You’re in here in the early hours of the morning, and then you’re getting yourself all psyched up to do something horrible… you can see why I would jump to the murder conclusion.” Shane says.

Ryan glares at him. “I’m not a murderer.”

“That sounds exactly like something a murderer would say.”

“I’m a ghost hunter.” Ryan says.

Shane pauses and stares at Ryan who looks defiant.

“You’re- what?” Shane asks.

“I’m a Ghost Hunter.” Ryan says, and this time, Shane can hear the capital letters, “I Hunt Ghosts.” Ryan repeats, as if what he has said isn’t completely ridiculous.

“That’s impossible.” Shane says.

“No, it isn’t.”

“Of course it is! Ghosts aren’t real! That’s like me saying ‘I’m a unicorn hunter’.” Shane says. He knows he sounds like an arrogant dick, but he also can’t believe that Ryan buys into this shit.

Ryan’s eyes flash.

“Ghosts are real! There’s so much evidence-”

“Evidence? Come on, you can’t actually believe-”

“I do believe! And tonight I’m going to an actual haunted house.” Ryan says crossing his arms. Then the defiant look fades from his face. “At least, I’m going to try to.”

Oh, Shane thinks. Ryan believes in ghosts, and wants evidence of ghosts, but he is also super terrified of ghosts.

A lot of things start to slot into place.

“So that’s what you’ve been doing. You’ve been scaring yourself shitless looking for spooks and then coming here for snacks!” Shane says.

Ryan narrows his eyes. “Don’t call them ‘spooks,’ I’m not five.”

“You’re the height of most five year olds.” Shane says. Ryan’s mouth falls open, but he recovers quickly.

“Hey, I’m average height we can’t all be a billion feet tall.” Ryan says.

“So how does your ghoul hunting work? You go to the house, you do a little Ouija board-”

“I do not fuck around with Ouija boards. I’m not an idiot.”

“No, you just spend your nights in a perfectly normal house pretending every creak and moan you hear is evidence of the undead. I wouldn’t describe that behaviour as idiotic at all.” Shane says.

“I’d like to see you do it.” Ryan says.

Shane suddenly has an urge he hasn’t had in a long time. The urge to do something _completely dumb_ for no reason, just for the sake of being alive and getting to dumb things. And if he gets to do this particular dumb thing with a hot guy then all the better. True, it isn’t the dumb thing he’d most like to do with Ryan (and this little debate has made it fairly obvious to Shane that if they ever do get to do that together, it will be _incredibly hot_ ) but still. He wants to spend time with Ryan, and have a reason to see him again; this seems like a good enough one.

“If you can hang on half an hour, I’ll come with you.” Shane says.

Ryan’s eyes widen comically. “What?”

Shane shrugs, suddenly less sure of himself, but he brazens it out. “I get off work at eight- if you want, I’ll come with you to this haunted house and we can investigate it together and you can see there’s nothing there.”

“You- want to come with me?” Ryan sounds completely disbelieving.

“Sure, pal, it’ll be a lark.” Shane says.

Ryan puts his Coke down on the counter and launches himself at Shane. It’s only a quick hug, but Ryan is warm, very strong, and weirdly delighted. Shane pats him awkwardly on the back, as Ryan disengages and starts babbling.

“Thank you so much! Oh my God, I had no idea how I was going to do this on my own-” His eyes are all lit up and he’s smiling and it’s a lot to take in.

“Well- you don’t have to. If nothing else, I wouldn’t want you to fall downstairs and break your neck and claim that it was ghosts.” Shane says.

“But how would I do that if ghosts weren’t real? I’d have to come back as a ghost.” Ryan points out.

Bill, the guy who is covering Shane’s usual shifts strolls in at five minutes to eight. Shane is eighty percent sure Bill is stoned but he’s also sure Bill has been stoned since the eighties, so he isn’t particularly worried. The guy reminds him of a very relaxed Bigfoot with his immense height and breadth, thick greying beard, and tendency to talk like Shaggy from Scooby Doo.

“You go have fun, bro. Like, you are literally only young once.” Bill says, smiling at Shane and Ryan.

“That is very true.” Shane agrees, as he heads to the back to change out of his work shirt into a t shirt and denim jacket.

“Unless you believe in reincarnation-” Bill begins to muse.

When Shane returns with his bag a minute or so later (after maybe putting on a tiny bit of cologne along with his normal clothes) Ryan and Bill are deep into a discussion about children being able to remember past lives. Shane rolls his eyes, and goes to grab snacks that he will actually eat that aren’t fucking Trail Mix.

“-and he knew all of his grandchildren’s names! Despite, you know, being a four year old-” Ryan is saying to Bill when Shane shows up at the register.

Ryan pauses and looks Shane up and down, and then does it again before lifting his gaze back to Shane’s face.

“Hey.” Ryan says, and Shane smiles at him.

“Hey, yourself. You ready to go?” Shane decides not to point out that Ryan just blatantly checked him out. Twice. Shane knows the baggy, beige and red Gas N Gulp shirt does him no favours, and now he has empirical evidence of that. He just needs to engineer more situations where he’s wearing clothes that actually fit him around Ryan.

“Uh. Yeah.” Ryan says.

Bill applies the standard Gas N Gulp staff discount to Shane’s purchases (ignoring half of them and charging a quarter of the price for the rest) and wishes them luck on their little adventure. Bill winks at Shane and Shane concedes that Ryan has a point about the creepiness of winking, even though he knows Bill is coming from a good place. Bill is yet another individual along with T.J, and Gem, and half of Shane’s friends, who has expressed the idea that Shane needs to get some.

They head out to Ryan’s car which is a beat up little Golf, which is very Ryan somehow.

“I’m Shane, by the way.” Shane says, after adjusting the car seat so he can fold his legs into the foot well.

“I know- you wear a name badge.” Ryan says.

“Oh, yeah.”

“And you know I’m Ryan. Ryan Bergara.” Ryan holds his hand out for Shane to shake.

“Shane Madej.” Shane says, whilst solemnly taking Ryan’s hand.

“Well.” Ryan says, taking a deep breath before starting the engine.

“Let’s go catch us some ghouls!” Shane more or less yells, to cut through Ryan’s tension.

It works. Ryan lets out a startled laugh as they pull out into the dusky evening.

“Oh my _fucking God_ , Shane.”

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“So, where are we headed? This place abandoned or…?” Shane asks Ryan as they pull onto the road.

Ryan nods. “Yeah, it’s abandoned. It’s a house that was rented on and off for a hundred years until people became so sick and scared of the paranormal activity that the current owner stopped being able to find tenants in the early nineties.”

Shane eats a handful of Goldfish and looks out of the window at the thick pine trees bathed in moonlight which flank both sides of the road and considers this.

“Or… it’s out on this stretch of road where the old rubber plant used to be, and when that closed down no one wanted or needed to live around here anymore?” He suggests.

“Lack of jobs doesn’t explain how people kept getting thrown out of windows.” Ryan puts in.

“Well… I guess if you don’t have a job and want fewer mouths to feed, maybe you could just start throwing family members out of windows. It’s certainly an option.” Shane says.

Ryan wheezes out a laugh. “That is fucking sick, Shane.”

Some of the tension leaches out of Ryan’s shoulders every single time he laughs.

Shane adopts an old timey accent. “Well, little Sherlyn I’m afraid Ma and Pa can’t afford shoes for you this winter so it’s out the winder you go, sweetheart.”

Ryan actually cackles at that.

They drive a little further into the dark when something Ryan said comes back to Shane.

“Why are you doing all this, anyway? You said something about wasting two years?” Shane asks.

Ryan sighs. “Yeah, I’m doing my postgrad thesis on hauntings and I need to gather research in a supposedly haunted location over several nights.”

“You’re doing a thesis on ghosts?” Shane can’t help his smile.

“Parapsychology.” Ryan says “I have a degree in psychology, if you want to be assured I’m not a lunatic.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll ever be assured of that. So how many nights have you managed in your haunted location?” Shane asks.

Ryan winces. “I haven’t really managed… any. I tried, but I got so in my head about it, and Brent got annoyed with me, which was fair-”

“He got annoyed with you for being scared?” Shane cuts in.

Ryan shrugs. “I’m annoying when I’m scared.”

“Yeah, but- you can’t get annoyed with people over their fears like you nearly had a mental break earlier dude. That’s not annoying, that’s… kinda scary.” Shane says, remembering Ryan on the floor struggling to breathe properly.

Ryan shrugs again, looking defensive. “But I asked him to take time out to come do this with me, and then I couldn’t even do it! That is kind of stupid. And annoying.”

Shane figures that Ryan isn’t going to see his point of view on this, and Shane guesses that he is always going to be kind of biased on the issue of Fucking Brent.

He’s just trying to think of a way to convince Ryan that he isn’t stupid or annoying for having fears,  when Ryan makes a turn off the main road that Shane would never have even have seen and they start bumping down a mostly dirt track into the dense woods.

“If the house is as scary as your suspension system then I can totally see us not surviving the night.” Shane says, as he clutches the overhead handle to avoid springing up through the roof.

“Be nice to Velma. She’s an old girl doing the best she can.” Ryan says, patting the dashboard.

They reach the house after a few more minutes of very uncomfortable driving, pulling into a clearing which overlooks wide flat fields. All the bravado seems to be sapped out of Ryan as they park up in front of what looks like a very normal, turn of the last century house. Nicely proportioned, wooden clad, with a porch, and large windows, Shane can see the real estate potential. Even if the windows are boarded up, and someone has scrawled ‘STAY OUT’ across the front door in neon yellow spray paint.

“Cosy.” Shane says, as he climbs out of the car to get a better look.

Ryan gives him a look which implies he thinks Shane is crazy.

“Uh no. The site of three unexplained deaths and numerous hauntings.”

“It can be both.” Shane says.

“You’re so fucking weird.”

“Damn straight, baby!”

Shane isn’t certain, but he thinks Ryan might blush slightly when Shane calls him ‘baby’. And that was mostly by accident. He tries to stifle a smile but he can’t. Shane actually feels genuinely excited, for the first time in a long time and wonders what it’ll be like when he tries deliberately flirting with Ryan.

“I’m guessing you have loads of ghost hunting thingies.” Shane says, as Ryan pops the trunk.

Ryan looks diffident. “Not loads of ‘thingies,’ but enough.”

Shane lets out a low whistle as he looks into the trunk.

 “Sure thing, _Egon_.” He says, as he takes in the array of gadgets.

“O.K, let’s get one thing straight here; I’m _Venkman_.” Ryan says, pointing a finger at Shane.

“Are you fuck Venkman. You’re Egon Spengler with all your gadgets.”

“Am not.” Ryan says, as he starts placing equipment into one of his backpacks. Because of course there’s more than one backpack.

“O.K fine, you’re Venkman. But you’re also Mulder.” Shane says, triumphantly.

Ryan grins. “I’ll take it. I guess that makes you Scully.”

Shane grins back as he watches Ryan realise what he’s said. The blush returns. It is very cute.

“Cool. I don’t look as good in skirts as Gillian Anderson, but I can definitely do an impressive eye roll every time you say something dumb.”

“Fuck off.”

They spend a few minutes sorting themselves out, which for Ryan means turning on equipment,  checking battery packs, and psyching himself up,  and for Shane means pulling on the sweater he keeps in his backpack because it’s kind of chilly.

“O.K,  so this is the most important piece of equipment I’m going to give you. Without it something really bad will happen to you.” Ryan says, pushing batteries into something.

“Oh, what is it? A Holy Water gun?”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “It’s a fucking flashlight dumbass. If you break one of your spindly limbs in there the nearest hospital is two hours’ drive away, and I don’t think I can carry you out of there.”

Shane takes the flashlight. “I am so glad you are approaching this logically.”

“And the second most important piece of equipment is the EMF reader which tells me if spirits are messing with the electromagnetic field around us.” Ryan says.

“And logic goes out the window quicker than the people who lived in this house!” Shane declares, as Ryan turns the EMF reader on. It looks like a boxy old fashioned calculator with LEDs stuck to it.

“It gives me important data.” Ryan insists, as he locks the car up.

“O.K sure.” Shane says, picking up one of Ryan’s backpacks.

They stand in front of the house for a few moments, staring up at the boarded windows. Shane will admit that it has the creepy vibe of your typical horror movie haunted house, but that doesn’t mean that it is inhabited by ghosts. Which, of course, it isn’t because there is no way that ghosts are real.

Ryan takes a shaky breath and an even shakier step forward. Shane claps him on the shoulder and then pulls him into a side hug.

“Ah, this is so incredibly dumb Ryan! I love it. Hey ghouls! The boys are here!”

***

Shane decides the best way to get Ryan through this is by light taunting, gentle encouragement, and complete irreverence.

After Ryan falteringly makes his way over the threshold (Shane had taken the key to the padlocked door off him after he saw how incapable Ryan was of opening it) he takes on a sort of fixed mask of horror, twitching at every noise he hears.

“Dude- look. Why don’t you talk me through the equipment?” Shane suggests, when Ryan basically refuses to leave the musty smelling, shadowy hallway just beyond the front door.

“Uh. Yeah. So we need to go into the living room I left some stuff here last time; we basically ditched and ran. Or I ditched and ran and Brent followed me, I guess.” Ryan says, his voice very quiet, as if they’re thieves who have broken in.

“Cool; living room through here?” Shane asks, at a perfectly normal volume, as he wrenches the nearest door open and steps into the room, swinging his flashlight around.

“Yeah-” Ryan shuffles into the room behind him, shutting the door, and then scuttling to Shane’s side. He blinks up at Shane, looking wide-eyed and, yep, completely fucking terrified.

“There’s a light over there.” Ryan says, apparently unable to move toward it himself.

Moving the beam of his flashlight, Shane spots a large, modern looking lamp in the corner, a little like the ones that are used to light crime scenes. He heads over to it, and crouches down to switch it on. The room is bathed in a very harsh white light, but at least he can actually see where they are now.

“You got more juice for this?” Shane asks, gesturing to the lamp.

Ryan nods. “There’s a portable generator.”

Shane glances around the living room. It looks like a normal room; considerably dated and run down, for sure, but not particularly sinister. One of those huge, ugly, dark wood storage shelf things that everyone’s parents seemed to own in the nineties dominates one wall. He will admit that it’s weird that whoever lived here last left some family photos on the walls. A staged group shot of a young family, presumably taken in the late eighties, going by the mullet on the dad, spiral perm on the mom,  and huge shoulder pads on the little girl’s dress, still sits over the fireplace.

Ryan catches Shane looking at the picture.

“That’s the Riley family. They’re the last ones to have lived here.” Ryan says.

“I can fully see why they left that picture here, the fashions are not great.” Shane says.

Ryan sighs. “They literally left in the middle of the night in 1992, they were so terrified of what they saw here. I’ve interviewed all three of them about their experiences.”

“Really? It’s cool that you’re being so thorough.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “It’s scientific research Shane. I’m trying to be as objective as I can.”

Something above them creaks, and Ryan yelps moving closer to Shane.

“Yeah, the objectivity is really showing. Come on, Ryan, it’s an abandoned house; there’s probably tonnes of bats and birds roosting in here.” Shane says.

Ryan nods. “I know I just- how are you _not_ scared?”

Shane shrugs. “It isn’t that scary? Sad, I guess that a family had a shared delusion that made them leave their home, but not scary.”

“Shared delusion? Debbie, the little girl, got thrown down the stairs by something she couldn’t see!” Ryan insists loudly.

“And how old was she when that happened? Like ten? Bored ten year olds living out in the woods are going to make shit up, Ryan.” Shane says.

Ryan glares at him. “This house has years of documented poltergeist full bodied apparitions and possibly demonic activity! You can’t just dismiss that.”

“I totally can.” Shane says.

“Oh, go on then, Mr. Skeptic.”

Ryan hasn’t noticed that, due to his annoyance with Shane, he has been steadily raising his voice from a reverent whisper to normal levels. Or that the fear is beginning to melt away from him. Not completely, of course, but it’s hard to be petrified and argue a ‘scientific’ point at the same time. Shane cracks his knuckles and starts counting off his points on his fingers, just to be as obnoxious as possible.

“OK, so number one as previously mentioned: Shared delusions. Out here in the sticks life has gotta be pretty boring, so you start imagining a few ghosties. Or you’ve heard some stories about the place and that gets in your head. Or your family has a history of paranoid delusions anyway.”

Ryan scoffs and starts taking EMF readings but doesn’t tell Shane to shut up. Which, even this early into their friendship,  Shane feels like he’d have _no_ compulsions doing, if he actually wanted Shane to shut up. It seems they’ve bypassed that awkward period at the start of most friendships where you have to be polite to the other person. Instead they’d gone straight out of the gate with the insults, which suits Shane just fine.

“Theory number two” Shane continues, as he helps Ryan check the batteries in his video camera “Gas leak.”

Ryan’s face lights up. “In your smug face, Madej, this place is off the grid. All tenants of this house have had to rely on firewood, propane cylinders, and kerosene.”

“Natural gas, then. Methane or a natural build-up of carbon monoxide can make people see stuff that isn’t there.” Shane says.

“Oh, sure, yeah, everything people have seen here for the past hundred years has been because of _methane_. Sure, Shane.” Ryan hands Shane another piece of equipment; a small handheld digital recording device.

“You’re going to like theory three even less.” Shane says.

Ryan sighs. “Go on.”

“They hated the house and wanted to live somewhere nicer, so just faked the whole ghost thing.”

“Oh- fuck you, buddy. No way. Dave Riley is still too scared to even drive on this road and Debbie has had years of therapy. No way did they fake _shit._ ” Ryan says opening the living room door, and walking out into the hallway. On his own.

Shane stays put until he hears Ryan give a little gasp.

“You O.K., buddy?” Shane asks.

Ryan appears in the doorway again. “I’ve never gone anywhere alone in this house before. Not even during the day.”

“Well, to be fair, you were only like six feet away from me at most.” Shane says.

Ryan smiles. “But I still did it!”

“Yes, you did. You walked into a hallway. I’ll buy you a milkshake.”

“You’re being sarcastic, but I will hold you to that.” Ryan says.

“It’s a date.” Shane says, and before Ryan can think about that for too long, Shane brandishes the little digital recorder thing that Ryan had given him. “Shall we go upstairs?”

***

Upstairs has a different vibe from downstairs, which Shane puts down entirely to the facts that a) there’s no light up there, save for the moonlight, which peeps through a gap in the boarded up windows and b) _there’s a gap in the boarded up windows_ and the glass has been smashed, meaning that all kinds of stuff can get in, such as the cold night air and whatever animals have made the unpleasantly musty smell permeating the second floor.

Ryan thinks the different vibe is because the spirit mainly dwells on and near the stairs, ready to push unsuspecting tenants out of the large window on the landing or down the stairs.

“Seems kind of weird that its whole thing is to push people. Bit of a grade school bully kind of move.” Shane remarks.

He doesn’t even have to look at Ryan to know he’s rolling his eyes. “This thing has killed three people, Shane.”

“Yeah, you haven’t explained all of this to me yet; how does a ghost kill people?” Shane asks.

“I- can I tell you later? After we leave?” Ryan answers, after a pause.

Shane shrugs. “Sure.”

He doesn’t press. Ryan is freaked out and Shane gets it. He also likes the idea of there being a ‘later’. Maybe they can find a late night diner where he can buy Ryan that milkshake…

Something in the darkness peels away from the wall and swoops towards them. Ryan screams directly into Shane’s ear, and grabs his hand, pressing his face into Shane’s bicep.

“Dude, it’s a fucking bat.” Shane says, shining his torch on the freaked out little creature flapping around the ceiling.

“It-oh.” Ryan lifts his head and stares at the bat. He’s breathing heavily, but he isn’t squeezing Shane’s fingers tight enough to burst blood vessels anymore.

“I think we disturbed him.” Shane says.

“You know bats carry rabies?” Ryan says, as they watch the bat flit around until it finds the gap in the window and makes a break for the outside world.

“Yep. Which is way scarier than ghosts.” Shane says.

 Ryan’s face is no longer pressed against Shane’s arm, but he hasn’t dropped his hand. Ryan’s skin is a little clammy but the overall effect is pretty charming. Shane runs his thumb across Ryan’s knuckles before he drops his hand because Shane is a gentleman, and doesn’t want to take advantage, but he’s also stupidly into Ryan and he isn’t sure how obvious he’s been about that. People have told him he can be kind of hard to read. He gives Ryan a little smile which he hopes conveys ‘I don’t mind holding your hand; in fact I actually really like it, but now is not the time for shenanigans’.

“Yeah… it probably isn’t a good idea to sleep here, based on there being bats here alone.” Ryan says.

“You were planning on sleeping here?” Shane asks.

Ryan shrugs. “Yeah, eventually. Brent and I brought sleeping bags last time. He wanted to try it because he thought it would help me see there was nothing here.”

“That’s throwing you in the deep end without any armbands.” Shane says.

Ryan narrows his eyes. “Is that a short joke?”

Shane laughs. “No, it’s a metaphor. Don’t be so touchy, anklebiter.”

“Fuck you.”

Shane’s eyes are beginning to adjust to the gloom. There are several doorways leading off the landing and he nudges the nearest door open with his foot. He shines the flashlight into the room and finds nothing scarier than a stained bathtub and an ancient toilet with a huge crack down the side. Shane can only assume the water has been turned off.

“Now Ryan,” Shane says “I know that the mildewed shower curtain there could in some lights look like a ghost…”

“Oh my God Shane.”

The next room is completely empty, except for a stained and grubby mattress on the floor and, rather grimly, a fairly new looking box of Trojans.

Shane raises his eyebrows. “You didn’t bring those, did you?”

Ryan punches him lightly in the arm.

“No! Teenagers used to come here before the owner padlocked the place shut. I guess they still break in.”

Shane makes a face. “Imagine losing your virginity in here.”

“I really, _really_ don’t want to imagine that.”

“You’d need more than Barry White and a Yankee Candle to make this romantic.” Shane says and Ryan giggles.

“Maybe two Yankee Candles.” Shane concedes.

They walk a little farther down the hall, Ryan sticking close to Shane’s side. Shane is not complaining. Every time he makes Ryan smile or laugh in this house, his own personal hell scape, he feels like he’s achieved something. He nudges another door, and this one manages to make the typical, horror movie, agonisingly slow creaking sound as it opens.

Ryan’s eyes are very wide when Shane turns to look at him.

“This is Debbie’s bedroom.” Ryan whispers.

The thin flashlight beam illuminates a decent sized room with high ceilings. Clearly animals have been nesting and shitting and dying in here for the last twenty or so years because there is a lot of, what Shane will politely call, ‘matter and debris’ lying around. Also teenagers have clearly made their way here spray painting the walls with bullshit like ‘Kyle and Lacie 4eva’ and ‘GHOSTS ARE REAL.’

There’s a little bed, still covered with a frilly comforter which was probably once white, but is now stained with age and… stains, probably from the animal population.  Shane moves the torch in a slow pan around the room and it comes to rest on a very disturbing looking doll which is perched on the dresser. It’s one of those mock Victorian ones with ringlets and bright red lips, but her glass eyes,  which would once have been designed to roll back in her head to ‘shut’ when her owner laid her down to sleep, have been pressed back into her china skull leaving vacant, black sockets.

Ryan gives a little start next to him “Oh, Jesus Christ. That doll is… unnecessary.”

“Yeah, we could do without that, huh?” Shane pans the floor with the flashlight, and there’s just no way his scuffed old high-tops with the holes are going to be suitable for dealing with the amount of shit on the floor.

 “I’m not sure I’m wearing the right shoes to go in this room, Ryan. I’ll bring boots next time.” Shane says.

“Next time? You’d be willing to do this again?” Ryan asks.

“Well, yeah. I assume you aren’t going to be able to get all the evidence you need in one night, so…”

Shane trails off as he realising that Ryan is staring at him with a vaguely thunderstruck expression.

“What?” Shane asks.

“You’re really serious. You want to do this again.” Ryan says.

Shane looks back into the room because Ryan’s expression is a little too much to look at.

“Yeah. I mean. It’s interesting.”  You’re interesting Shane doesn’t say.

“Are you free tomorrow? Because, God- O.K. I didn’t really have a proper plan, because I was basically just going to try and see if I could come here on my own, and obviously I couldn’t but- then you said you’d come and-” Ryan is very nearly vibrating with excitement.

“Yeah, I’m free tomorrow.” Shane says, cutting through Ryan’s next run on sentence “So why don’t we go and make an actual plan?”

Ryan nods, smiling up at Shane and Shane’s heart gives a weird little flip. And then another bat flies at them from the darkness and Ryan nearly bursts his eardrum with a second close quarters scream.

“Jesus, Ryan.”

“Sorry.”

They head back down the stairs, Shane going first once again, Ryan hot on his heels. When they reach the bright confines of the living room there’s an ominous creak above their heads which makes Ryan twitch. In the stark light of the lamps in the living room, Shane can see the very apparent traces of exhaustion on Ryan’s face.

“I don’t mean this critically Ryan but did you like… sleep at all this week?” Shane asks.

Ryan fiddles with his EMF reader. “Define sleep.”

“So maybe you’re not in the best frame of mind to be doing ghost hunting.” Shane says. He takes a look at his watch. “It’s 12:30 now. How about we head home, get a lot of sleep, and then come back late afternoon tomorrow- or I guess today?”

“That- sounds like a very good plan.” Ryan agrees, as he tries and fails to stifle a yawn.

“You can uh- stay at my place? My roommate’s going away tonight and it makes sense for us to come here together.” Shane says, going for casual and probably failing to achieve it.

He expects some kind of argument from Ryan, but instead he gets a quick nod.

“That would be great, actually.” Ryan smiles that chest stuttering grin of his and Shane nearly falls over his own feet.

They pack up quickly, grabbing the expensive equipment and shutting off the lights. Shane padlocks the door behind them and hands Ryan the key.

“We’ll be back!” Shane calls to the empty house.

“Yeah, and we’re gonna be taking notes!” Ryan threatens.

Shane laughs all the way back to the car.

***

Somehow, Shane manages to persuade Ryan to let him drive. Which is a good thing, because the second Ryan settles into the passenger seat with his jacket tucked around him like a blanket, he’s out like a light. Even the terrible road conditions on the way back to the main highway don’t wake him.

Amazingly, ‘The House’, as Shane dubs it in his head, is only about a forty minute drive away from Shane and T.J’s apartment on the outskirts of town. He doesn’t even need to figure out how to use Ryan’s satnav to get back to his place.  He gently shakes Ryan awake after he parks Velma in T.J’s vacant parking spot. Shane had texted T.J earlier to tell him he wouldn’t be able to make drinks. T.J had immediately forgiven this transgression when Shane mentioned he would be spending the night with ‘they’. Somehow, he doesn’t think that ghost hunting would have been Teej’s first thought when Shane had texted that, but still, T.J had told him to have a great time. And weirdly Shane has had a great time.

“Hey Ryan? We’re here.” Shane says, gently jostling Ryan’s shoulder.

“Mmm.” Ryan replies, and Shane knows that people make accidentally sensual noises in their sleep all the time, but _God_. Ryan sounds like he’s having some good dreams. He moves his head a little towards Shane and fucking sighs. The orangey glow of the street lamp illuminates Ryan’s flawless skin, and emphasizes the long dark smudges of his eyelashes against his cheek.  Shane clears his throat. He’s been super good about not getting all moony over Ryan, and now here he is actually getting hard over his goddamned _eyelashes_ ,  and Ryan’s _asleep_ ,  and that’s all kinds of wrong.

“Ryan.” He says, a little louder than necessary.

“Fuh-wha-Shane?” Ryan blinks awake, clearly startled.

“Hey, sorry, didn’t mean to wake you. Well, I did, actually; we’re here. This is where I live. In the building, not the parking lot.” Shane wonders if he sounds as much of an idiot as he thinks he does.

“Oh- oh God, did I fall asleep? Jesus, I’m sorry.” Ryan unbuckles his seatbelt and rubs his face.

“It’s fine. C’mon, you’re exhausted, grab your shit and you can get some more sleep.” Shane says.

Along with his ghost hunting equipment, Velma’s trunk also holds a ‘survival backpack’ which Ryan takes everywhere ‘just in case’. It contains changes of clothes, including underwear, a toothbrush, a towel,  travel sized toiletries,  Ryan’s spare glasses,  a Maglite,  a sewing kit,  a portable charger for his iPhone,  and a box of strawberry NutriGrain bars.

“But Ryan where’s the kitchen sink?” Shane asks after Ryan lists the contents off. He can’t even pretend that he doesn’t find all of Ryan’s Mulder-ish tendencies delightful.

“In your apartment, I hope.” Ryan says, as Shane unlocks the door.

T.J has already made his escape to the airport, so the apartment is quiet and sort of cold as the heat has been on low for hours. Shane turns on the lights and fiddles with the thermostat, as Ryan dumps his bag. He and T.J are both pretty tidy and they even have a cleaning rota for the chores, so Shane isn’t worried about Ryan being grossed out, but he still finds himself kind of nervous as Ryan looks around.

“Hey,  this is nice!” Ryan says taking in the posters that Shane actually bothered to frame last year,  the light coloured walls,  and the nice couch that T.J’s parents gave them second hand.

“Thanks.”

“I live on the other side of town closer to the university. You know it?”

Something in Shane’s brain jars.

He hasn’t told Ryan that he’s studying at that university. That he is also a PhD student, but he’s a little older and doing a Humanities course so that’s why they haven’t met at any mixers. They probably don’t even use the same buildings.  It would be easy to _just say that_.

But for some reason, despite it being the easiest thing in the world to say ‘hey, of course I know it; I’m studying there too’ he doesn’t. He can’t. Because if he opens that door, then he stops being the fun adventurous spontaneous guy Ryan thinks he is and he starts being Shane.

Shane who has lost all joy in his subject and feels like he has wasted years of his life and whose mom says that ‘ _It’s really O.K if he just wants to come home_ ’ in a teary voice whenever the subject comes up in their weekly phone calls. He really kind of hates being that guy.

“Yeah, I know it.” Shane says, kind of awkwardly.

Ryan starts to say something else,  but he opens his mouth and gives an absolutely jaw cracking yawn instead.

“I am so ready to sleep.” Ryan says, smiling tiredly.

“Yeah- of course; you’ll be in my room and I’ll sleep in T.J’s.” Shane says.

“Oh, um, really?” Ryan asks.

Shane frowns. “Yeah…? Unless you want T.J’s room but-”

“No, I, uh. Kind of hate sleeping anywhere other than my own room.” Ryan says.

Shane blinks, confused. “O.K, well, it’s really late and you’re super tired but if you want me to get you an Uber-”

Ryan shakes his head, looking at Shane as if Shane is being really dumb. “I can’t sleep in strange places on my _own_.”

It takes a second and Shane realises he’s been embarrassingly slow to get with the programme.

“Oh! Yeah that’s- cool. You can sleep with- in my bed.”

Ten minutes later Shane is sitting in his own bed, contacts out and glasses on, waiting for Ryan to finish up in the bathroom. He looks around his room, hoping that it doesn’t look too bad. At least his succulents are alive and all of his dirty clothes are in the hamper.         

He spots his research binder and several books open on his desk and he sighs, getting out of bed to deal with it. He shuts the folder, and then decides to shut it away in one of his desk drawers so Ryan won’t find it and ask questions. Because Ryan will _absolutely_ ask questions, and right now Shane doesn’t feel like answering them.

“Your apartment is so much nicer than mine, you have a tub- hey, are you alright?” Ryan asks after appearing in the doorway. His hair is tousled, as if he’s run water through it, and he has also replaced his contacts with glasses. He is wearing boxers and a t shirt and Shane makes himself stop looking at him after he’s taken in these facts.

“Yeah, I’m fine just- long day you know?” Shane says.

Ryan nods. “Kind of a weird day I guess?”

“Yeah.”

They’re at an impasse with Shane’s bed between them.

“Your bed is huge.” Ryan says, which breaks some of the weird tension.

“Uh, yeah, Ryan; I’m tall. If I don’t want to wake up with leg cramp or a crick in my neck, I need a big bed.”

“Which side should I take?”

“Up to you whether you want to be closest to the door or to the window, I guess.” Shane says.

Ryan looks like he’s genuinely going to start deliberating this.

“But I generally prefer closest to the door.” Shane says.

Ryan nods and scoots around the bed and climbs in. He sets his glasses on the little shelf by the bed and lies down groaning happily when he’s horizontal.

“Oh my god, your sheets smell nice. The dryer at my place makes everything smell like burnt hair. Grad student accommodation is the worst” Ryan says.

Silently Shane agrees. It’s why he and T.J both have jobs and, until recently, why Shane picked up any extra teaching hours at the university that he could. They still live in the cheaper part of town but T.J’s parents help out a little, and they managed to get a good deal on rent. Shane could tell Ryan all this. He doesn’t.

 Instead Shane climbs into bed next to Ryan and settles down.

“Burnt hair smell is not amazing, have you talked to the super?”

“That guy is an actual ghost. I should probably do research on him.” Ryan mumbles into the pillow.

“You are so out of it.” Shane smiles, hopelessly beguiled.

“That’s me. Ryan Steven Out Of It Bergara.”

“I’m gonna turn off the light now, buddy. I’ll set an alarm.” It has just gone two so Shane sets and alarm for ten am.

“Cool.” Ryan is basically just a tuft of black hair in the swirl of Shane’s comforter.

Shane shuts off the bedside lamp and lies down willing sleep to come quickly. He hasn’t been sleeping well of late, which hasn’t helped his whole deal. But he has been awake and on his feet for over nineteen hours so for once, he’s fit to drop.

“Hey, Shane?” Ryan whispers, as Shane teeters on the edge of sleep.

“Yeah?” Shane says.

“Thank you. You’re great.” Ryan says sleepily, but incredibly sincerely. Something catches in Shane’s throat.

“You too, pal.” Shane goes to pat the back of hand Ryan’s hand, but Ryan twists his hand around mid-pat making it so their palms are pressed together. Shane doesn’t want to move his hand away so he doesn’t. Ryan curls his fingers around Shane’s hand and Shane repays the favour.

“Hm. Nice.” Ryan murmurs happily. And then promptly falls asleep still clutching Shane’s hand.

Shane’s awake for a long time after that.


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning Shane makes Ryan eggs and prepares to be told the harrowing story of The House. Actually, it’s more like lunchtime when they manage to roll out of bed. Shane’s body is stiff as if he’s held himself still all night but Ryan seems well rested.

“I found out about the house from one of my teachers. He grew up around here and knew about the place, so he told me about because he knew I was interested in that stuff and I started doing research and I got kind of obsessed.” Ryan laughs a little sheepishly, before taking a self-conscious sip of juice.

Ryan’s been avoiding Shane’s gaze all morning, and Shane can’t decide if it’s because he’s embarrassed that he held Shane’s hand in bed last night or that he so willingly went home with him. Or perhaps it’s that he isn’t embarrassed about it at all.

Shane sets the eggs down in front of Ryan and retrieves the coffee pot from the stove.

“This is fancy.” Ryan says.

“You have a weird idea of fancy.” Shane says.

“Coffee and juice? _And_ paper towels? This is the freaking Ritz, dude. I live with someone who reuses plastic cutlery.” Ryan says, digging into his eggs.

“They clean it though, right?” Shane asks.

Ryan makes a face. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Ew.”

“Grad students, man.” Ryan says, pushing his glasses up his nose.

It’s Shane’s chance to right the wrong of last night; to tell Ryan that he knows grad students are disgusting monsters with no social skills or hygiene standards because he is one.

Then he thinks about his wilting thesis and the dread he feels over the looming semester and his next meeting with that prick Professor Morrison.

“So… are you going to tell me about The House?” Shane asks, picking up his own fork.

Ryan frowns at his eggs. “Actually… I was going to propose something.”

Shane clutches at his chest. “Ryan… this is so sudden.”

Ryan blinks and then lets out a bark of surprised laughter colouring slightly. “Fuck off. No- I was _going_ to suggest that I don’t tell you anything about the place, other than the stuff you already know. See if you pick up on anything.”

Shane takes a sip of coffee. “That seems kind of- sensible actually.”

Ryan nods. “You’d be like a control experiment. You just need to write down all the stuff you know about the place already- like names I mentioned, stuff about the deaths, etcetera and then if you are able to pick up on anything in the house that you didn’t already know then I could use that as evidence. If you’d be alright with that.”

Shane shrugs. “I don’t mind being a primary source.”

Ryan smiles. “These eggs are great by the way.”

“The secret is that I cook them until almost all the risk of salmonella is gone. The flavour you’re enjoying is danger.” Shane says.

Ryan snorts into his coffee and gives Shane a fond look. It’s so fond that Shane has to look away. He hasn’t brushed his teeth yet and nothing kills potential relationships like morning breath.

“Hey, I need to swing by the hospital this afternoon but otherwise I’m free all day.”

Ryan’s eyes widen. “Are you O.K.?”

“What- oh yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, my friend got electrocuted and I want to stop by and see him. Should have specified.”

Ryan’s eyes widen further. “Electrocuted?”

“Yeah- our awful microwave at work shocked him.” Shane explains.

“Jesus, that’s terrible! He should sue- are you guys unionised?” Ryan asks.

Shane knows that it’s a perfectly innocent question and a perfectly reasonable one at that. Ryan can’t possibly know that the thesis languishing in Shane’s desk drawer is about how certain illegal actions of large American unions in the mid twentieth century, along with other factors such as McCarthyism and corrupt governments led to worker disillusionment and instilled a sense of learned helplessness into the working class which business owners and right wing provocateurs use to their evil advantage.

And yeah, maybe the idea is a little ‘derivative’ and perhaps he is ‘reaching for simple conclusions that are more complex than his definitions of them’ but Shane still feels like there’s something salvageable in his work even if his thesis supervisor, Professor Morrison, doesn’t think so.

Ryan doesn’t even know that Shane has a thesis. Because Shane hasn’t fucking told him.

Still, he can’t help feeling slightly defensive over the fact that he knows so much about labour history but hasn’t been able to get his own colleagues to unionise.

“I’m part of one, but I couldn’t get anyone else to join up. Too scared of pissing off our nefarious overlords I guess.” Shane says, perhaps a little too bitterly.

“I wasn’t being critical.” Ryan says, frowning.

“No- I know you weren’t. You’ve got a point though; I should call my rep.” Shane picks up their empty plates and takes them to the sink.

Ryan stands up. “I can do that- you cooked.”

“It’s cool, you can get lunch.” Shane says with a wink.

Ryan laughs. “You seem pretty sure of yourself, mister.”

The thing is Shane isn’t sure at all. It’s all an act. He’s got no idea if he stands a chance with Ryan, or if Ryan is just in it for the ghost hunting and really good eggs. Shane supposes he could just ask. Straight up, totally middle school style ‘do you like me Y/N?’.

He grabs a dishcloth and dries his hands.

“Hey, so...” Shane turns to find Ryan stretching his arms up over his head in attempt to loosen muscles kinked by sleep. Logically Shane knows that’s why Ryan is contorting himself, and not because he wants to give Shane a G-rated floorshow which exhibits Ryan’s exquisite arm muscles and a tiny sliver of his stomach and nothing else.

“Hmm?” Ryan asks, when Shane doesn’t continue because Shane is distracted by the half inch of delicate skin he can see where Ryan’s t shirt is riding up.

“You uh- want the first shower? Got a lot of planning to do and… the hospital.” Shane finishes lamely.

Ryan frowns a little and then nods. “Sure.”

“Cool.” Shane manages.

There’s a slight but definitely awkward silence as Ryan walks down the hall to the bathroom.

“Still got it.” Shane murmurs, whilst resisting the urge to smack himself upside the head.

***

Ryan drives them over to the hospital in Velma despite Shane’s insistence that he would just get the bus.

“Dude, it’s cool.” Ryan says.

“But-”

“Shane, get your ass in the car.”

“Hospitals suck though you can’t want to spend your afternoon in one.” Shane points out.

Ryan gives him a strange look. “So you want me to sit in your apartment by myself all afternoon?”

“No just-”

“Shane. I really don’t mind. I want- just get in the car before I run you over.” Ryan says, sounding as close to actually irritated as Shane as ever heard him.

Shane acquiesces, sliding into the passenger seat and then readjusting the passenger seat.

“What the fuck did you do to my seat, man?” Ryan asks as he blinks at the steering wheel, which is admittedly much farther away from him than it should be.

“I adjusted it, because I don’t have the tiny legs of a woodland sprite.”

Ryan resentfully hitches the seat forward. “Well, you’ve lost your radio privileges. Which hospital is it?”

“Memorial. I hate that place; I once had to spend six hours in there with Teej when he stood on a broken tile and cut his foot open-” Shane launches into the story of T.J. and The Terrible Tetanus Shot and not once does he mention that the broken tile was in their first shitty apartment when they were both newly graduated. Ryan’s practically in hysterics when Shane gets to the part where T.J., suffering from the ill effects of the shot, threw up on Shane’s shoes. Which weren’t shoes, but open sandals, because it was summer and Shane had just panicked and thrown on the first thing he could find when he realised how sick T.J.’s wound was making him.

“I think it solidified our friendship.” Shane sums up, as they pull into the parking lot and start scanning for a free space.

“And liquidised your sandals.” Ryan says, making Shane laugh.

“I dumped them in the trash the first chance I got, but getting them off my feet is not something I ever want to go through again.”

“How did you meet T.J.?” Ryan asks.

“College- there’s a spot just over there.” Shane says, neatly dodging further questions as Ryan focusses on parking the car.

They find Tyrone’s room with a half hour of visiting time left.

“Hey, buddy.” Shane says setting down the family sized package of Reese’s Pieces and the card signed by Gas N Gulp staff down on Tyrone’s bedside locker. There are already several cards and even a bunch of flowers.

“Shane!” Tyrone says, clearly pleased to see him. He reaches the arm not covered in bandages out to shake Shane’s hand.

Tyrone doesn’t look great. His black skin has taken on a greyish pallor and the bandages up his arm and covering his hand are alarmingly extensive.

“I look that good, huh?” Tyrone asks with a laugh, taking in Shane’s expression.

“I knew that damn thing was busted…” Shane says, feeling a wave of guilt as he sinks into the chair by Tyrone’s bed.

Tyrone shakes his head. “We all knew it was busted. It wasn’t your fault Shane.”

“But if I’d said something-”

“No use dwelling- who’s your friend?” Tyrone asks, changing the subject.

Shane glances up to see Ryan hovering awkwardly in the doorway.

“Oh- this is Ryan. He hunts ghosts.” Shane says.

Ryan gives Shane a look. “I don’t just hunt ghosts.”

“No, sometimes you’re also scared of bats.” Shane says and Ryan flips him off.

Tyrone laughs. “This sounds like a story.”

So Ryan sits down and they proceed to tell Tyrone about Ryan’s investigation and about how Shane offered to help him. Tyrone’s tired eyes twinkle at Shane. Tyrone is yet another person, on the long list of people, telling Shane that he needs some romance in his life.

“You know that the Gas N Gulp is haunted.” Tyrone says, conspiratorially.

Ryan’s eyes widen. “What really?”

Shane rolls his eyes. “No, it isn’t. It’s a stupid rumour Kelly made up after she kept losing her phone at work, and then Rachel believed her, because Rachel believes stuff in the National Enquirer and then Bob started repeating the rumour, because Bob is usually too stoned for critical thinking.”

Tyrone ignores Shane. “There’s something in the utility closet in the warehouse outback. Get Shane to take you in there sometime.”

Shane narrows his eyes at Tyrone, who stares back innocently. Everyone who works at the Gas N Gulp calls that particular storeroom ‘the makeout closet’ and it’s as haunted as Shane’s ass. It’s kind of weird to be wingmanned by a forty year old, married, father of two, who is currently lying in a hospital bed. Not that Shane doesn’t appreciate it but still. The fact that Tyrone clearly thinks Shane has no game is a) embarrassing and b) a little too close to the truth for his liking.

“I’ll do that.” Ryan says.

And then Ryan notices the t-shirt that Tyrone is wearing and lights up.

“Hey! You’re a Lakers fan?”

“Oh God, sports?” Shane asks.

“You don’t like sports?” Ryan asks.

Tyrone laughs. “Shane’s too interested in his history books for sports. He only knows who Jordan is because of _Space Jam_. He actually called Michael Jordan ‘that guy from _Space Jam’_.”

Ryan winces. “Oh my God.”

“When did this turn into a roast exactly?” Shane asks.

“When you were born.” Ryan replies.

Tyrone laughs again, but he looks even more exhausted than when they arrived and Shane knows that he’ll want to be awake later when his wife and kids come for the evening visit.

“Hey, so, we’re gonna head out man. Ryan owes me lunch.” Shane says.

“Thanks for coming.” Tyrone says, trying to sit up, but clearly becoming too fatigued to do more than just slouch against the pillows.

“I’m going to leave you my union rep’s details, O.K? They can refer you to a workplace injury lawyer- if you want one.”

Tyrone looks a little uncomfortable. “I’m not sure-”

“It can’t hurt to try.” Ryan says softly, which apparently works a lot better than Shane’s usual ‘the lessons of the past were all learned with worker’s blood’ soapbox technique, because Tyrone gives a tentative nod and Shane scribbles down the email address and a phone number on the back of a handy paper napkin.

“See you soon pal.” Shane says, and this time leans over to give Tyrone a one armed hug mindful of how painful his bandaged arm must be.

Shane isn’t really surprised when Ryan also gives Tyrone a manly hug as they say their goodbyes. Tyrone manages to give Shane a thumbs up behind Ryan’s head. Shane can’t stop himself from smiling and going slightly pink.

“I like Tyrone.” Ryan says, as they walk back to the car.

“Yeah he’s great. Sucks that this happened to him. I hope he sues the asses off Gas N Gulp.” Shane is very happy to be outside in the cool March air and not in the stiflingly hot confines of the hospital room, where the smell of old food and other even less pleasant odours were so strong he could practically taste them.

And it’s great to be with Ryan, who looks incredibly good in his ripped black jeans, tight t shirt, and faded denim jacket. Ryan smiles at him in the weak spring sunshine and Shane kind of wants to shove him against any wall he can find and-

“Hey, so, what did Tyrone mean about you being ‘too interested in history books’ for sports?” Ryan asks, cutting through Shane’s happy and vaguely publically indecent fantasy.

“Hmm? Oh, I’ve never been interested in sports which is kind of hard growing up near Chicago. Do you know how many sports teams Chicago has?”

Ryan smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yes, Shane. I know how many sports teams Chicago has. I meant that I didn’t know you were interested in history.”

Shane shrugs. “You’ve known me like a day, man.”

For some reason this deflates Ryan even further.

“Yeah. I guess I have.”

Shane knows that Ryan just wants to get to know him better, but Shane suspects that Ryan won’t actually want to know Shane the history buff who is all sad because his PhD is fucked. Ryan is really fucking hot and likes sports for God’s sake; he definitely doesn’t want to sit around and hear Shane moaning about his thesis.

“And isn’t it great I turned out not to be a murderer? You were pretty trusting about getting into bed with me. You do that often Bergara? Just go home with guys you barely know?”  Shane asks, hoping that his flirting gambit will pay off.

Ryan flushes a lovely shade of pink. “No! I mean- no.” He looks at his feet.

“Hey, I’m not complaining. And I wouldn’t be even if I was a serial killer because heck pal, you would have made it so easy to kill you. You let me drive your car!” Shane says.

Ryan goes even redder but he looks up at Shane his dark eyes sparking defiantly. “Yeah, well, I’m a pretty good judge of character. Maybe I just trusted you.”

That statement floors Shane. He doesn’t think he’s ever told anyone he trusts them let alone that boldly in the middle of the day.

Shane can’t think of anything smart to say in response the moment feels too serious. Too open.

“Was I wrong?” Ryan asks.

The words Shane wants to say die in his throat. The expression on Ryan’s face is a lot to look at.

“Was I wrong, Shane?” Ryan asks again his voice much softer, but that makes the question more pressing, more important.

“No.” Shane says his voice also soft but sincere. Very sincere, because Ryan deserves that. “No, you weren’t wrong. I wouldn’t hurt you.” Shane feels the need to add, although he’s not quite sure in what context he means it. He knows that Ryan knows he isn’t a serial killer.

Ryan gazes up at him for a moment, a slight frown on his face, and then he drops his eyes with a nod and a little smile.

“Cool. I- thanks.” Ryan says.

Shane isn’t quite sure what any of this means, and suddenly the idea of giving Ryan one of those little checkbox notes that used to get passed around in seventh grade comes back to him. Or maybe he should just take him to the make out closet and request Seven Minutes in Heaven. Something about Ryan makes Shane feel like a super awkward thirteen year old with a giant crush.

“You don’t need to thank me for not killing you, dude.” Shane says.

Ryan shrugs, smiling his dazzling smile his earlier seriousness gone.

“Seems only polite. Hey, there’s a nice diner near here we should go get something to eat and make a plan for tonight.”

Shane agrees and tries not to think about how this could almost, maybe, in some lights, be construed as a date. He’s still thinking about how this isn’t actually a confirmed date when they slide into opposite sides of the booth their waitress seats them at. The diner is pretty quiet as the lunchtime crowd are long gone and it’s still much too early for dinner.

Ryan whips out a notepad from his backpack and starts talking about ‘lockoff cameras’ and ‘getting decent EVPs’ and Shane tries to focus on the plan, and not how attractive Ryan is when he’s focussed and enthusiastic about something.

“I know this is a big ask, but would you be willing to stay a whole night? Maybe not tonight, but at some point?” Ryan asks, before taking a sip of his milkshake.

“Yeah- I mean. That’s fine. I have to work Thursday and Saturday during the day, otherwise I’m pretty much free.” Shane says.

Ryan frowns. “I thought you worked full time?”

“Nah, just part time. And I’m covering Tyrone this week, so Bob has my usual shifts.” Shane says.

Ryan’s brow furrows further. “Oh but-”

“Food’s here.” Shane says as he spots the waitress heading over with their meals. Ryan becomes preoccupied with adding condiments to his burger, which Shane is grateful for. He takes a bite of his own burger. It tastes amazing.

“Why have I never been here before?” Shane asks.

“It’s one of those places that only locals and old people come to. Seriously look around; we reduced the average age by about forty years when we walked in.” Ryan says.

Shane glances around at the clientele and realises that Ryan is right. They are the only people in the diner, apart from the staff who don’t have grey hair. There’s a little clutch of old guys playing dominoes and a couple of small groups of older women knitting.

“I’m getting Cocoon vibes. I hope they don’t get rowdy.” Shane says and Ryan snickers.

“The reason I know about this place is my friend Steven is really into food; he did this dumb thing in his final year at college here where he went around rating basically every place you could buy food in town. Like. Every single one. From this place to those really fancy restaurants out near the park and literally every takeaway he bought drunk food from.” Ryan says.

“That sounds like an endeavour.” Shane says.

“Yeah, Steven’s great. He’s also kind of a pill. He got a job in New York I’ve only seen him a couple of times since he graduated.”

“I know that.” Shane says. He still has friends in town, but it still feels weird that some of the people he was closest to for years are now scattered across the States. And it also makes him feel guilty because he doesn’t keep up with them as much as he should.

“He’s actually going to be in town for a party on Saturday night. Brent’s throwing this thing, because most people will be back from Spring Break, and Steven graduated two years ago but he’s still down for Spring Break, y’know.” Ryan says, looking across the table at Shane.

Shane nods and drinks some of his milkshake to hide the wince his face automatically makes when Ryan mentions Fucking Brent.

“It’ll be fun. I mean, it also be a stupid rager with a bad sound system and shitty beer, but-” Ryan looks at Shane some more.

Shane feels like there’s something he should be getting here, but he isn’t. He eats a few more fries.

Ryan looks down at his plate and then back up at Shane.

“You want to come with me maybe?” Ryan asks.

Shane blinks in surprise. “Oh! Oh, um. Maybe.”

Shane’s thinking about the teaching stuff that he needs to get ready before next week, as well as how tired he’s going to be on top of working and ghost hunting. Adding a rager to that mix probably isn’t the best move if he wants to get enough sleep _and_ prepare for his meeting on Monday with Professor Morrison.

Ryan gives him a weird smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s cool, man.”

An odd silence settles over their booth as Shane tries to work out what he said to make Ryan, who was clearly enjoying his meal, shove his fries to one side and start fastidiously writing out a plan for their ghost hunting evening.

“I- I think I’ll just be kind of worn out.” Shane says.

Ryan nods. “Sure.” He doesn’t look up from his work.

The truth is Shane isn’t sure he wants to go to a rager hosted by Fucking Brent, where there’s a likely chance he’ll run into someone he knows from the university. He wants to stave off his contact with the academic community as much as he can until he absolutely _has_ to start engaging with stuff again. And yeah, it’s kind of stupid that his mental boundary has been set for 9AM next Monday and not a minute sooner but then, that’s how his brain works.

“Plus Fu- Brent hates me.” Shane corrects himself before he can say Fucking Brent’s full title.

“You were super rude to him.” Ryan replies.

“He was a dick first!”

“That’s fair.” Ryan says, with a little laugh and Shane’s heart flutters at the sound.

Shane wants to ask what the deal is between Ryan and Fucking Brent, because he’s fairly sure that what he thought was a break up between the pair of them was actually just Fucking Brent telling Ryan he didn’t want to ghost hunt anymore. Which- maybe that means Ryan isn’t even into guys. Maybe Ryan is just one of those Evolved Straight Guys who doesn’t see anything wrong with emotional vulnerability and he was just holding Shane’s hand in bed last night out of a need for comfort.

Again, Shane supposes he could just ask if Ryan likes men. He could absolutely do that.

“Hey, what do you think about Bigfoot? Is he real?” Shane asks instead.

Ryan looks up from his writing and gives a mischievous little smile.

“You mean apart from the one who had to adjust my car seat to encompass it’s ginormous fucking legs last night? Nah.”

Shane stares at him.

“Nah? Ghosts are yes, but Bigfoot is ‘nah’?”

“There isn’t enough evidence.” Ryan says, shrugging infuriatingly as if to say ‘case closed’.

“Oh, and there’s enough evidence of fucking ghosts?”

Ryan puts his pen down. “Ghosts are documented in all cultures-”

“So is Bigfoot!”

Ryan has the gall to give Shane a condescending look. “Not in the same way.”

“Oh my God.”

“Ghosts and demons are evident in folklore worldwide-” Ryan launches into some spiel about how ghosts are real and Shane should really start salting all of the doorways in his house if he doesn’t want a demon to possess him. Shane watches him and wonders how exactly he’s falling this quickly for a guy who acts like using a Ouija board could have a comparably detrimental effect on your life as injecting heroin into your eyeballs.

It’s not that Shane thinks Ryan is dumb for believing this stuff; Ryan is clearly very intelligent. Shane admires Ryan for how ardently he believes.

“What?” Ryan asks.

Shane realises he’s just been sat there watching Ryan talk, probably with a dopey expression on his face.

“Nothing I just- you’re really into the paranormal huh?”

Ryan eats a fry.

“Yeah? You got a problem?” He asks.

Shane shakes his head. “No. I guess-” Shane takes in Ryan’s earnest expression and suddenly what he was trying to articulate feels kind of stupid _._

_I wish I could believe in something like you do_. It just sounds lame and sad and self-pitying, at the same time as being vaguely patronizing toward Ryan.

“What?”

“Nothing. Mind’s just wandering y’know?”

After they split the check (Shane insists he was joking about Ryan having to pick it up) Ryan goes to the bathroom whilst Shane waits in the parking, lot leaning against Velma, checking his phone. He’s slightly surprised to see he has a voicemail and less surprised when he calls it and hears T.J’s unmistakable drunken rambling.

“Shaaaaane, buddy, I’m at- WHAT? Sorry man I’m- DUDE, JUST GET ME A BEER- Mark’s getting me- I DON’T FUCKIN’ KNOW MAN, ANYTHING- getting me a beer and he’s being a GODDAMN DICK ABOUT IT STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS I’M TALKING TO SHANE. Hey, Shane, dude, buddy- I love you, alright? Mexico it- it’s fucking great, man. Why aren’t you here? I miss your stupid fucking face and I know we talked before I left, but, buddy, if you ever need to talk more- YES, FUCK, I WANT A FUCKING LIME IN IT, ARE YOU AN IDIOT?- like really talk, y’know ,about _anything,_ then we can. I am down. O.K? Because you’re great and I miss you. God, there was another reason I was calling- fuck. Can’t remember- OH NO, WAIT- yeah, I think you should go for it with that dude. Are they a dude? I think they probably are, because you wouldn’t talk about it cos you’re always a bit more cautious with guys but BUDDY. You deserve some happiness O.K? HOoooLY SHIIIIT, MARK GOT A PITCHER-”

The voicemail cuts out which is probably for the best. Shane texts T.J, advising him to drink something other than alcohol and to wear a hat in the sun. T.J texts back a lot of nonsense and a half dozen eggplant emojis, so Shane suspects his roommate is well on his way to becoming a sunburnt, dehydrated mess. He can’t help but laugh; when they first met Shane had thought T.J was distant and standoffish, and even when they moved in together to that first terrible apartment with the broken tile and the roach infestation he wasn’t sure if T.J actually liked him or if he just wanted someone to live with.

A couple of years, an adverse reaction to a tetanus shot, Shane coming out as bi, and a move to a nicer apartment, Shane is fairly certain that T.J likes him. He feels vaguely guilty once again for making T.J worry so much about him, he honestly hadn’t known how obvious it was to everyone in his life that he hasn’t been doing so great. Save his mom, but she’s his mom; she can basically tell something’s wrong by the way he answers the phone.

He decides to give T.J some good news.

**_Things are looking up with ‘that dude’_ **

A few seconds later and Shane gets ten more eggplants and a high five, a response which makes him laugh. Clearly T.J’s thoughts wend in a more eggplant-wardly direction than platonic diner dates and ghost hunting, but Shane guesses he can correct the guy when he gets home.

Shane sends back a winky kissy face and then pockets his phone. He glances across the parking lot to see Ryan heading towards him with a slightly strained, but still very lovely, smile on his face.

“Everything O.K?” Ryan asks, gesturing to Shane’s phone.

“Yeah- T.J left me a voicemail.”

Ryan bites his lip. “Cool.”

“Ready to go?” Shane asks, which is better than him just verbalising his thoughts which are all some variation on _‘God, you’re so fucking pretty’_.

Ryan nods.

“As I’ll ever be.”

“So- tell me the plan.” Shane says, once they are strapped into the car again.

“We swing by your place, grab some food and the rest of my stuff and then head back over to The House.” Ryan says, putting the car in gear.

“Sounds amazing. Can’t wait to get this show on the road.” Shane says, giving Ryan a wink.

Ryan laughs. “We talked about the winking, dude.”

Shane’s phone starts vibrating in his pocket and he fishes it out again to see that T.J has sent him a picture of Mark drinking directly from the pitcher of Corona.

“Oh God.”

“Everything O.K?” Ryan asks

“I think my friends are going to give themselves alcohol poisoning in Mexico.” Shane says.

“Sounds about right. You didn’t feel like heading off with them?” Ryan asks.

Shane shrugs. “I was already scheduled for work and I didn’t feel like blowing a couple of hundred dollars on a week I wouldn’t really remember, y’know?”

“Wow, Shane you sound forty six.”

“And yet I don’t look a day over forty five.” Shane says, trying not to feel needled. T.J had tried for months to convince Shane to take the trip with him and Mark.

“I was kidding.” Ryan says.

“I know- sorry.” Shane rubs a hand through his hair “I’m a little self-conscious about how boring my life is.”

Ryan gives him a sidelong glance. “Being a white guy in Mexico on Spring Break wouldn’t make you less boring.”

“Gee, thanks.” Shane responds, flatly.

“Not that you’re boring! You’re really interesting.” Ryan says, his voice pitching higher with indignation.

Shane splutters out a laugh. “I’m messing with you.”

“I – yeah. I know you are.”

“I think you’re really interesting too, Ryan.” Shane says, his tone falsely saccharine.

“Fuck off.”

“I think you’re the most interesting boy I’ve ever met.” Shane says, fluttering his eyelashes.

“I will drive into oncoming traffic.” Ryan replies, seriously. His lips quirk upwards in a reluctant smile as he says it, though.

***

Two hours later and they are back at the house. The sun is beginning to dip below the horizon as Shane carries a pack of bottled water and one of Ryan’s rucksacks inside.

“The boys are back!” Shane shouts as he crosses the threshold and Ryan laughs nervously, but he seems a lot more relaxed than the previous evening.

As per Ryan’s plan, they set about setting up locked off cameras in various rooms. Ryan slips a camera into the big shelving unit in the living room and Shane sets one up on the kitchen counter. It’s his first time in the kitchen, but it’s basically as he imagined it would be; ubiquitous eighties wood panelling on the cupboard doors, a vinyl gingham table cloth and chintzy curtains. He makes the mistake of opening the years off fridge, and Ryan laughs as Shane gags at the smell.

The stairway gets two lock off cameras and Shane volunteers to set up a tripod in Debbie’s bedroom whilst Ryan loiters in the doorway. It’s the room that Ryan seems most frightened of, and Shane’s happy to make the sacrifice. Still, he’s is very grateful for the thick soles of his boots as he crunches his way over the matter on the floor.

“You take me the nicest places, Ryan.” Shane says, as he positions the tripod.

“You literally took me to a hospital this afternoon.” Ryan points out.

“There was at least like… ten percent less animal faeces in there, though.”

“You’re good with a camera.” Ryan observes, watching Shane fiddle with the tripod.

“Yep- T.J majored in film and is doing some weird creative shit now; he tends to rope me into stuff when he needs a cameraman and all his other friends are busy.”

Ryan nods and then looks like he wants to ask a question and then decides against it.

“You O.K?” Shane asks, at the same time Ryan blurts out with “Are you and T.J a thing?”

Shane blinks.

“Uh, what?”

Ryan looks mortified and starts stammering.

“Like, I know you live together, but you can live with someone and have a friends with benefits thing, right? And you get this _look_ on your face when he texts you. Or maybe, like- Oh Jesus, forget it.”

“You think Teej and I are friends with benefits?” The idea is hilarious, but something about Ryan’s expression makes the laughter bubbling up in Shane’s throat die.

“I don’t know!” Ryan says, throwing his arms in the air. “I can’t read you at all!”

Shane blinks again. “Why would you need to-”

Somewhere downstairs something crashes to the floor.

Ryan turns to Shane with wide eyes. Another crash sounds, followed by a string of muffled curses.

“Shane.” Ryan whispers, his voice a panicked wobble.

“It’s alright.” Shane says, striding across the room. Ryan catches his arm before he can set off down the stairs.

“What if it’s a ghost?” Ryan asks.

Shane raises his eyebrows. “If it’s a ghost we get to go home, case closed, you get your doctorate, prove ghouls are real and probably make a million bucks. But how many ghosts have you heard of who swear after falling over something?”

Ryan’s eyes are still wide, but he nods and they start their descent together, Shane going first and Ryan hot on his heels. Shane can hear talking in the living room and he pushes the door open with his foot and finds himself confronted with what he would generously describe as ‘two of Reddit’s finest’.

Two white guys with questionably filled out beards stand in the living room amidst Ryan’s equipment. They are roughly Shane’s age, which in Shane’s opinion means they are ten years too old to be wearing cargo shorts and t shirts with video game characters on them, but here they are, Sonic and all.

 “Someone left some stuff here- guess other ghost hunters didn’t have the balls to stay the night- hey, who the fuck are you?” Guy One asks, glaring and whipping the handheld camera he was talking into around to face Shane.

“I could ask you the same thing.” Shane says, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Oh _God_.” Ryan mutters, from just behind his shoulder.

“Ryan Bergara?” Guy Two exclaims, in a voice similar to the one Shane’s fifteen year old cousin uses when she says the words ‘Harry Styles’.

“Hi Gary. Hey Dave.” Ryan says.

“Dude, we didn’t know you’d be here!” Guy One, Dave, says grinning wide.

“Uhuh.” Ryan’s tone is frozen in pleasantry, but Shane can see how rigid his posture is.

“We heard people were out here investigating but we didn’t know it would be you.” Guy Two, aka Gary, puts in. He gives Shane a quick once over. “Who’s this?”

“Shane Madej.” Shane says and then offers no further information, just leans against the living room wall and tries to figure out the dynamic here.

“Yeah- I’m investigating for my PhD research, so-” Ryan begins, only to get cut off by Dave

“Dude! Seriously? Why didn’t you swing by the Paranormal Society? We’d totally help out!”

Ryan’s shoulders, if anything, become even tighter. Shane has become a great admirer of those shoulders in his short acquaintance with them and hates to see them under so much strain.

“I know, but-”

“We brought the Spirit Box!” Gary says and pulls something spectacularly bullshit looking out of his pocket. He flicks the Bullshit Machine on, and Shane winces because it sounds like having a panic attack in a room made of chalkboards being scratched by ten thousand fingernails.

“That’s great Gary-” Ryan basically yells over the noise.

“Huh?”

“I said, that’s great-”

“Oh my God- shut it off!” Shane actually yells.

Glaring, Gary switches the dial over to off and Shane nearly faints with relief.

“No need to be a dick, man.” Dave says.

“Well, that was an unwarranted aural assault, so yeah, actually I think there is.” Shane says.

Gary bristles.

“Who the fuck are you? Which investigation group do you belong to?”

Ryan steps between them, which Shane thinks is entirely unnecessary as Shane hasn’t changed his posture at all, and Gary has probably never hit anyone in his life outside of using a video game controller.

“Hey- let’s calm down. Shane isn’t part of any societies he’s-”

“I’m Mr Bergara’s attorney.” Shane lies smoothly.

“What?” Dave asks.

“Mr Bergara was concerned the integrity of his research might be damaged by the interference of other paranormal investigators.” Shane explains, as Ryan turns and stares at him wide eyed.

Gary snorts derisively. “Oh, what so you’re an attorney who just decided to come ghost hunting?”

Shane shrugs. “I’m outdoorsy. And it seems Mr Bergara’s concerns were justified.”

“We aren’t damaging the investigation!” Dave says, indignantly.

“You literally knocked over an expensive camera tripod breaking in here. And were you aware one of the conditions Mr Bergara agreed with the owner of this house was that there would be limited numbers of people in the building whilst he investigated and everyone in attendance would have signed an insurance waiver? Have you gentlemen done that?” Shane asks.

Dave blinks and Gary looks shellshocked.

“Uh… no.”

“So you _are_ damaging Mr Bergara’s investigation, however well-meaning your intentions may be.” Shane points out.

Ryan is staring at Shane like Shane just fell out of the sky. Dave turns to Ryan and starts apologising profusely.

“Oh God, Ryan, we didn’t know- we honestly didn’t even know it was you out here investigating! We just wanted to come out and take a look.”

Ryan seems to snap out of it and manages to tear his eyes away from Shane.

“Oh no, guys it’s fine! I get it- you just need to leave and there’s honestly no harm done.” Ryan says.

“Of course- we’re so sorry.” Gary repeats.

Ryan starts herding the Reddit twins to the front door. Shane hears Ryan promising to return to the Paranormal Society for next month’s Pot Luck and EVP Seminar before slamming the door shut.

He re-enters the living room and the second that he catches Shane’s eye the pair of them collapse into helpless fits of laughter.

“Where the fuck did that come from?” Ryan asks, after they get their breath back.

Shane grins. “I have seen all of Ally McBeal. Best way to imitate a lawyer is talk a lot of bullshit real fast.”

Ryan laughs. “Yeah, well, you really saved my ass there. Those guys are- so nice and so fucking annoying.”

“Let me guess- they talk constantly and crash into things?”

Ryan covers his eyes with his hand and lets out a little whine. “Every dust particle is a ghost or an orb or something.”

“You’re not an orb guy then?” Shane asks.

“I’m not completely ruling them out! Just- God. Thank you so much for saying that thing about having limited numbers of people in here; I wouldn’t have come up with that in a million years.”

Shane shrugs. “You didn’t seem super comfortable with the Ryan Bergara Fan Club hanging around.”

“They aren’t my fan club.” Ryan says, looking up at Shane.

“I bet they have badges.” Shane says.

“Shut up, Shane.”

“T Shirts. All kinds of merch with your face on-”

“I gave one talk to their society and now I’m on their mailing list and they keep asking me back!”

“I bet they have baseball caps with ‘I Believe in Ryan’ written on them.” Shane says, laughing.

“Fuck you.”

“Hey, I’d buy one.” Shane says.

He means it lightly, as a joke, but somehow Ryan is standing really close to him and Shane’s voice has dipped strangely low.

“No, you wouldn’t.” Ryan replies, his voice quiet.

“Would too.” Shane insists, his voice equally quiet.

Ryan peers up at him, his huge eyes searching. And then he looks down at his feet.

“Yeah, well they wouldn’t make one big enough for your giant head so-” Ryan starts to move away and Shane reaches out and catches his arm.

“T.J is my roommate and I love him but I’m definitely not having sex with him.” Shane says. Ryan’s big eyed stare is back.

“O.K.” Ryan says.

“Like- if you were unclear on that. You seemed unclear.”

“Yeah- I wasn’t. Clear.” Ryan says.

“Great. Cool.” Shane says. He knows he should probably let go of Ryan’s arm and that they should probably get on with the investigation and he _definitely_ shouldn’t kiss Ryan for the first time in a disgusting abandoned building.

Instead he pulls Ryan closer, dips his head and presses his lips to Ryan’s and really fucking hopes he hasn’t got this wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait!


	4. Chapter 4

For a moment everything seems to be going alright. Ryan doesn’t pull away or punch him. He just sort of stands there, apparently processing the fact that Shane is kissing him. And then Ryan makes a tiny little noise tilts his head and everything starts going a lot better than just alright.

Shane hauls Ryan closer his arms winding around him, whilst Ryan’s hands are in Shane’s hair and it’s pretty easy for Shane to spin them around so Ryan has his back against the wall. Shane crowds him a little, pressing even further into Ryan’s space and-

Ryan twists his head and his hands slip out of Shane’s hair and land firmly on Shane’s chest, giving him a little push backwards.

“No.” Ryan says. Well, sort of gasps, as he’s clearly trying to get his breath back.

Shane’s stomach drops.

“No?” Shane asks. It’s- yeah, It’s actually pretty crushing, because he’d thought- he’d been almost certain-

Ryan shakes his head looking dazed his lips wet and parted and - Jesus.

Shane lets go of Ryan and starts to put some distance between them. He’s fucked everything up and the last thing Ryan needs is Shane touching him when Shane wants him this badly.

Except the putting some distance between them plan doesn’t actually work, because Ryan follows him and maybe now the punch is coming, seeing as Ryan grabs for Shane’s shirt.

“You- we can’t do this now! Why are you doing this now?” Ryan asks.

“I- what?”

“You’ve had all day!” Ryan says and pulls Shane’s head down again.  Shane manages to pull back before Ryan can kiss him again because clearly they need to actually _talk_ about what the hell is going on here.

“You just said no!” Shane says.

“What?” Ryan asks. He looks kind of annoyed. Shane can relate.

“You just pushed me away and said ‘no’, Ryan. That’s a pretty clear message.”

Ryan’s face clears.

“Oh, I didn’t mean ‘no’ as in ‘no’, I meant ‘no’ as in ‘not right now’.”

Shane crosses his arms. He is both very relieved and still very confused.

“Why not right now?” He asks.

“Because we’re going to be investigating here tonight and I don’t need the distraction.” Ryan says.

“The distraction?” Shane repeats.

Ryan’s cheeks turn a little pink.

“Yeah; a big tall distraction.” He says, ruefully.

Shane’s starting to feel a lot more optimistic about this whole endeavour.

“Well, you’re pretty distracting yourself.” He says, which he knows is not a great line but Ryan goes even pinker, so he counts it as a win.

“That’s what I mean though!” Ryan says sobering quickly “We have to be here for hours now, instead of- doing other stuff.”

Shane laughs a little. “Other stuff? Like… playing Monopoly?”

Ryan gives him a look. “I obviously meant clearing out our email inboxes.”

Shane reaches out and pulls Ryan close again. Ryan rests his forearms on Shane’s chest, hands dangling off Shane’s shoulders and looks up at him. If Shane were less into Ryan he’d say something smooth about how well they fit together, despite the height difference, but he’s so fucking giddy with it he finds it impossible to quit razzing the guy.

“I thought you were talking about filing our tax returns.” He says, pressing his forehead against Ryan’s.

Ryan laughs, a breathless little huff, which Shane feels against his lips.

“Nah, I was saying we need to go back to your place… and fold all your laundry.” Ryan says.

“God, you’re absolutely filthy.” Shane replies, before leaning down.

This time there is no confusion at all about what anyone’s intentions are. Ryan pushes up to meet Shane and this kiss is basically the one Shane has wanted to plant on Ryan since the first time he saw him. It’s hot and sweet, and when Shane bites down lightly on Ryan’s bottom lip, Ryan gives a little moan. God, Shane just wants to press Ryan into the gross looking couch and see what other noises he might make.

Eventually, regrettably, Ryan pulls away and rests his head on Shane’s chest, trying to catch his breath.

“OK, so we’re- we um. Good.” Ryan says.

“Yeah.” Shane agrees, because he’s not wrong.

Ryan lets out another little laugh.

“We really need to focus on the investigation, though.” Ryan points out.

“Yeah, that’s a good point. But can I counter it with something?”

Ryan frowns.

“Um. Sure.”

“OK, so my point is-” Shane says, before leaning in and kissing the tantalising spot where Ryan’s neck joins his shoulder, the only bit of Ryan’s skin that is actually visible, apart from his face and hands given that they are both dressed warmly for a night of ghost hunting.

Ryan laughs delightedly as Shane’s lips coast across the base of his throat, but all too soon he pushes Shane back a little.

“Shane- ”

“I know, I know. The ghosts don’t want to watch us make out. Or maybe they do?” Shane peers around suspiciously. “Maybe we don’t need to give the pervert ghosts a show, Ryan.”

“You’re such a fucking doofus.” Ryan says, but the affectionate smile he gave Shane over breakfast that morning has returned, and this time Shane lets himself bask in the full warmth of it.

“Yeah, well you’re the one who just made out with this doofus. So who is the bigger doofus? The doofus or the doofus who kisses him?”

Ryan tries to give him a stern look, but he’s still smiling. “OK, so don’t ever misquote Obi Wan at me like that again and also the biggest doofus here is definitely you.”

“We’ve said the word ‘doofus’ so many times it has lost all meaning.” Shane says.

“You are the meaning.” Ryan says, looking up at Shane with his face all flushed and happy and Shane can feel himself getting pulled in again.

“No! God- we need to. Focus.” Shane says, reluctantly letting go of Ryan’s waist.

“Yeah.” Ryan agrees, taking a step back. He surreptitiously adjusts his jeans and then goes off to check one of the cameras.

Shane tries not to slap himself in the face.

He cannot believe he started this between them here, in this disgusting old house which smells of mildew and is decorated on a theme of early 90s regret, when he has a perfectly good bed at home. And a couch. And a lot of useable horizontal surfaces. And maybe the shower if Ryan is into that (he gets the feeling that Ryan might be into that). But no, Shane has to make his move in a house that probably has asbestos or a gas leak or a bunch of rabid animals in the goddamn walls.

Ryan turns back to Shane, takes in his expression, and starts laughing softly.

“What?” Shane asks.

“You look like a kid on Christmas morning who’s been told he has to wait for his grandparents to show up before he can open his presents.” Ryan says.

“That is a highly inappropriate metaphor for me blue balling myself Ryan.”

Ryan laughs louder, takes a step closer to Shane and then looks up at him, all innocent eyes underneath those long eyelashes.

“O.K… you look like a guy who knows he’s going to have to wait a few hours before he gets his dick sucked. Is that more appropriate?”

Shane’s mouth goes dry.

“Well, you didn’t mention grandparents in that one. Not sure you could call it a metaphor, though.”

Ryan snorts and then pulls Shane down for a quick kiss.

“C’mon big guy the sooner we start the sooner we can leave.”

***

About four hours later Shane has discovered that ghost hunting is pretty boring, especially when Ryan won’t even make out with him now. Not even a little bit.

“I’m just saying, we’re sitting in the dark here, alone…” Shane says, after waiting a suitable amount of time since Ryan last called out to the ghosts. Shane attempts to sneak an arm around Ryan’s shoulders.

“We might not be alone.” Ryan points out, shifting a little on the couch. He has a little notepad in front of him and he keeps taking note of the things he hears and he also measures the temperature at fifteen minute increments. Shane actually thinks it’s kind of cute. He’s not going to let the ghost shit pass though.

“We’re alone Ryan.”

Ryan gives him a look.

“I thought you didn’t want to give the ‘pervert ghosts’ a show?”

“But if the ghosts aren’t real-”

“But they might be!”

Shane rolls his eyes but he drops it. A no is a no, and he will absolutely respect Ryan’s boundaries. It’s not Ryan’s fault that Shane discovered kissing him is literally Shane’s favourite thing to do in the world, and they can’t really incorporate that into ghost hunting.  It would mess Ryan’s notes up for a start.

A thump sounds from somewhere upstairs and Ryan is suddenly clutching at Shane’s shirt.

“Alrighty! Let’s go investigate.” Shane says hauling himself to his feet.

“Uh- yeah.” Ryan says as Shane holds a hand out to him. To his credit he doesn’t try and back out of it when they reach the bottom of the stairs, and there is another thud above them.

“Hello?” Shane calls out. For some reason he does it in a plummy English accent. Next to him Ryan lets out a nervous giggle- and yeah, that’s the reason.

“The spooks aren’t giving us anything, Ryan.” Shane says as he starts upstairs his flashlight illuminating the steps in front of them.

“We might have caught something on the lock off cameras.” Ryan says as he follows closely behind Shane.

They check each room; nothing seems out of place, and there aren’t any bats flitting around this evening. And then they reach the end of the landing. Debbie’s bedroom.

Shane frowns.

“Hey- did we shut the door behind us when the Blunder Boys showed up?” He asks.

Ryan’s looks up at him mildly aghast.

“I don’t- I can’t remember.”

“Huh-weird.” Shane says and then goes to open the door.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asks but his panic slurs his words together so it comes out more like ‘whareyoudoin?”.

“I am opening a door, Ryan.”

“But there might be a ghost.”

Shane folds his arms and squints down his nose at Ryan.

“Isn’t that the whole point?”

Ryan looks at Shane and then at the door handle and then back up at Shane.

“Yes.” Ryan says, and then reaches for the door handle himself. The door swings open with that horror movie perfect creak and Ryan swings his torch beam around the empty room.

“Hello, is anyone- Jesus Christ!” Ryan yelps as the flashlight illuminates something on the floor.

“What is that?” Shane asks, taking a step forward into the room. Ryan grabs his arm.

“It’s the fucking doll.” He whispers.

Shane blinks. “Shit; you’re right!”

The creepy mock Victorian doll is lying on the floor on its back staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, it’s arms above its head as if in fright. The arms look almost as if they’ve been posed Shane’s pretty sure the last time he saw them they were by its sides.

“That is weird.” Shane says.

“Oh god.” Ryan says, his voice a tremulous gasp.

“How did it fall off like that?” Shane asks.

“Wh- what? You think she fell?” Ryan asks.

Shane wanders over to the doll and, after pausing to put his gloves on, picks it up. He doesn’t exactly want to touch anything with his bare hands in here lest he get that gross bird shit lung fungus disease he read about one time on Wikipedia. He shakes the doll free of detritus and the doll’s arms move freely. They aren’t the rigidly stiff joints of a real Victorian china doll, but a shoddily made 1980s copy held together inside with elastic. That explains why her arms had changed position; they were a design fault. Nothing paranormal about shitty toys.

“Of course it fell. It’s right next to the chest of drawers it was standing on.” Shane says.

“But what caused her to fall?” Ryan asks.

Shane stands up again and then goes to put the doll back on top of the drawers.

“Ryan this building is falling down around our ears- it’s not exactly a stable environment with no variables. And we were in here moving around earlier; I could have knocked it over when I ran out of here!” Shane points out.

Ryan doesn’t look convinced.

“Look- why don’t we check over the footage from the camera.” Shane says.

Ryan nods. “Alright.”

Shane goes to the tripod and pulls the camera off and then takes it to where Ryan is seemingly rooted to the floor, glaring at the doll. He hits playback and holds it out for them both to watch.

“Oh, there you are.” Ryan says as they watch a close up of Shane’s face as he sets the camera up whilst talking to Ryan.

“You couldn’t mistake that handsome face.” Shane says, even though he’s very aware of just how giant his head looks from that angle. He’s actually relieved when his onscreen counterpart moves away from the camera so his body is more in shot, and ninety percent of the screen is not just his nose.

Ryan lets out a soft huff and then points to the camera view screen.

“Here you go you’re gonna get all manly now.” Ryan presses into Shane’s side and Shane takes the opportunity to slip his arm around Ryan’s waist.

Shane on screen stands up a little taller as he responds to the noise downstairs. He hears Ryan’s worried protests as he disappears from view and they are left watching an empty room. Shane can just about make out the murmur of the conversation that he knows was taking place downstairs.

“Mind if we fast forward?” Shane asks.

Ryan nods his agreement and Shane hits the function to speed it up. They watch as the light in the room dims with the setting of the sun, and night vision mode kicks in automatically. Shane hadn’t particularly focused on where he was putting the tripod earlier, but setting it up in the corner of the room as he had done means that they have a decent view of the bed, the door, and the chest of drawers where the doll sits. Nothing happens and nothing happens and honestly Shane is zoning out a little, until Ryan grabs his wrist.

“Wait- go back.” Ryan says.

Shane spools back until Ryan taps the screen.

“Look.”

Shane hits play and they both watch as the doll topples over face first on top of the drawers.

“Hm.” Shane says.

“Hm?” Ryan asks

“Well- that doesn’t mean much.” Shane says.

Ryan sighs and rests his head on Shane’s shoulder and mumbles something.

“What?” Shane asks.

“I said ‘it’s lucky you’re hot’.” Ryan says.

Shane can feel himself going red.

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Because you’re so fucking annoying” Ryan continues “How can you think- holy shit.”

Ryan’s attention gets caught up in the video playback again as they watch the door slowly close. As in agonisingly slowly. It takes almost a full minute for the thing to shut with a dull click.

Shane pauses the video. Ryan turns to Shane his mouth hanging open.

“Explain that one.”

“Old hinges and a slight breeze can do that. You’ve got no control experiment here-”

“Old hinges? You’re saying old hinges. Old hinges.” Ryan repeats.

“Yes. Old hinges. If the door had suddenly banged shut or it was obvious something had pulled it closed, then yeah, I’d say maybe there was a chance it could be something not of this world, but come on. That was so slow man it could have just been like. The natural momentum of the door.” Shane says.

Ryan glares at him.

“We can experiment right now.” Shane says and starts to let go of Ryan.

“Nope.” Ryan says grabbing Shane’s hand and pressing it back against his hip.

“What?” Shane asks and then wonders why the hell is questioning Ryan. Shane likes having an armful of warm Ryan.

“You’re not leaving me alone in here!” Ryan says.

“I am literally walking to the door.”

“I don’t- I don’t want you to let go of me right now.” Ryan admits in a small voice. Shane’s heart does something weird which is directly related to the way Ryan seems to be trying to literally burrow into his side.

“OK, I won’t.”

Shane would be lying if that didn’t make him feel kind of good. Not that he wants Ryan to be scared, but that Ryan trusts him. He puts both his arms around Ryan and rests his chin on top of his head. Normally Shane would absolutely take this opportunity to make a short joke but he doesn’t feel like making fun of Ryan right now.

 “Do you want to stop watching this?” Shane asks, because they both know that the doll is going to fall off the chest of drawers at some point, and no amount of Shane’s rationalizing is going to make Ryan think it was something mundane that made it happen.

“No- we should probably keep going.” Ryan says, and Shane squeezes him a little because, yeah, Shane isn’t scared of anything they are going to see, but Ryan is.

Shane plays the video again and they both focus in on the doll. Around about 10:30pm the doll suddenly slips off the chest of drawers and drops to the floor. It doesn’t, to Ryan’s credit, look as if it fell off just by overbalancing or because of a breeze; the movement is too sudden and too sharp, almost as if someone, or perhaps something, had swiped it off the surface. It’s strange; one of the strangest things Shane has ever seen, especially as he knows that it _can’t_ be fake.

“Fuck.” Ryan says, shivering.

“That- O.K, I admit that is pretty weird.” Shane says.

Ryan’s fingers dig into Shane’s chest. He looks up at Shane, his eyes bright with fear.

“We should watch it again.” He says.

Shane blinks. That wasn’t what he was expecting Ryan to say at all. He’d expected something more along the lines of ‘We need to burn this place to the ground and flee immediately.’

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And we don’t know what caused those bangs and we need to listen to the EVP sessions. We’ve got a lot of footage to look through.” Ryan says, very business-like for a guy who is actually trembling.

“Oh.” Shane can see whatever vague but hot plans he had for the rest of the night slipping away. He tries not to feel too disappointed. He had agreed to help Ryan with all of this.

“I’m uh- not entirely sure I can move though so that. Might have to wait.” Ryan says, laughing a little before screwing his eyes shut. “Fuck, I’m such an idiot.” He whispers.

“You really aren’t.” Shane says.

“I am-”

“You’re already so much braver than you were last night! And you’re way braver than you were any night before that, and you just watched something that freaked me out a little bit so-”

“You’re freaked out?” Ryan asks, his voice an octave higher than it was before.

“I mean- not really. If it is a ghost it’s a weak ass ghost. And it almost certainly isn’t a ghost so...no I’m not freaked out anymore.” Shane says. It can’t have been a ghost. There has to be something else at play.

Ryan laughs and presses his head against Shane’s chest. “I wish my brain could work like that. I’m currently theorising that the ghost led us up here so it could throw us down the stairs.”

“Yeah, well. I weigh more than that doll. Ghosty is going to have to bring out the big guns.” Shane says, stroking Ryan’s hair.

Ryan looks up at him. He wets his lips and Shane avidly watches the movement of his tongue.

“I am much too terrified to make out with you again in this house.”

“Cool.” Shane replies, flatly.

Ryan laughs out loud, but it’s shaky. “Seriously can we- can we get out of here? We can leave all of the equipment; I’ll drive back out tomorrow and-”

“We’ll drive back out tomorrow. It’s alright, Ryan. You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.”

“I super don’t want to.”

“Then off we go.” Shane says letting go of Ryan’s waist, but only to grab his hand.

Twenty minutes later they are back in the car after Shane has padlocked The House shut. He somehow managed to convince Ryan to wait on the porch whilst he grabbed the lock off cameras they had left around the place. When Shane finally returned, after dumping all the equipment into a holdall, Ryan looked like he hadn’t moved an inch.

“You could have waited in here, you know.” Shane says, when they are in the car buckling up and adjusting their seats. By some unspoken agreement Shane is driving again.

“Yeah, but if I got in here and locked myself in then I don’t think I would have been able to unlock the door if I heard anything happen to you so-”

“So you’ll only save me from my spine getting ripped out by a ghost if there isn’t a locked door between us?” Shane asks.

“Something like that.” Ryan replies.

“It’s lucky you’re hot.” Shane says throwing Ryan a wink.

They push on down the bumpy track towards the tarmacked highway, Shane cursing every time the suspension nearly rattles one of his bones right of its socket. Ryan seems contemplative, frowning out at the big expanse of pine trees and purple sky in front of them.

“Y’know I am kind of eager to get back there and investigate again.” He says.

“You want me to turn ‘round?” Shane asks.

“I want that less than anything else in the world, ever. But tomorrow night- if you’re up for it?”

“The things I do for you.” Shane says in a long suffering voice.

Ryan laughs and the sound of it brightens the night.

***

Shane is a little apprehensive as they pull into his building’s parking lot. Because, O.K, Ryan had seemed really into everything earlier but he’s been really quiet on the way back from The House and Shane is starting to think that maybe they moved too fast. Or moved when they shouldn’t have been moving at all.

He cuts Velma’s engine and is just about to try and come up with a line, something unthreatening and alluring at the same time as being completely non-committal (he’s been working on the line for forty minutes now and so far he’s got ‘So… hey’ and that’s it) when Ryan unbuckles his seatbelt and basically launches himself, lips first, at Shane.

Shane perhaps wasn’t quite as ready as he could have been, and there’s a weird moment where their noses (mostly Shane’s nose) are too in the way, but then Shane tilts his head and slides a hand into Ryan’s hair and then it’s all pretty perfect again.

Well, almost perfect, as Ryan lets out a slightly pained groan when Shane tries to pull him closer.

“Gearstick.” Ryan mumbles as he pulls away.

“Huh?” Shane asks, not quite getting it.

“I nearly took a gearstick to the gnads!” Ryan says, gesturing to the way he’s sort of crouched over Velma’s gearstick and hand break.

Shane laughs. “We can just go upstairs, man.”

Ryan pouts a little. “But I wanted to kiss you now.”

It’s something about Ryan that Shane hopes he’ll never get used to, that absolute sincerity he has about him sometimes. He can be a sarcastic asshole even to rival Shane’s level of sarcastic assholery, but then he can just say something breathtakingly honest. Like in the parking lot, earlier, when he’d asked if he was right to trust Shane.

“What?” Ryan asks, a little defensively.

“Nothing. You’re cute.” Shane says.

“Fuck off.”

“Oh, you want me to?” Shane asks, reaching for the door handle.

Ryan grabs for him and they spend a pleasant couple of minutes, grappling, laughing and kissing like dumb kids. The fun ends abruptly, when Shane crowds Ryan back into the passenger seat, leans over him and promptly gets jabbed in the stomach by the gearstick.

“This thing is fucking homophobic.” Shane says, swatting at the gearstick as Ryan laughs his head off.

They grab the equipment and head on up to Shane’s apartment. Shane drops the holdall on the couch and then gets right back to the serious business of making out with Ryan Bergara. And it actually does feel a lot more serious, now they are in Shane’s apartment, with Shane’s bedroom only a few feet away.

Shane presses Ryan against the wall, cups his face with his hands and kisses him hard. Ryan opens his mouth and the kiss grows deeper. Fire licks down Shane’s spine and everything inside him wants to get closer to Ryan.

Shane’s hands migrate to Ryan’s hips, pulling Ryan tight against him. Ryan lets out a gasp, which turns into a moan as Shane lets his hands roam a little.

“I’m a big fan of these jeans.” Shane whispers as he shoves one of his hands into Ryan’s back pocket.

“Oh yeah? Sure it isn’t just the way my ass looks in them?” Ryan asks.

“Well, I don’t think they’d fit me.” Shane says, squeezing the denim covered flesh beneath his palm, making Ryan’s breath hitch in his throat.

They reach Shane’s bedroom after a few minutes of determined manoeuvres by Shane, which were occasionally thwarted by Ryan being too fucking hot and Shane getting distracted from his end goal of getting Ryan horizontal, when making out with Ryan vertically was pretty damn great.

Still, Shane’s pretty relived when he tumbles them both onto the bed and he can kiss Ryan without getting a crick in his neck. Stupidly, he expresses this thought to Ryan.

“Oh my God, I’m average height, you’re just too tall.” Ryan says, rolling out from underneath Shane to pull his sweater off.

They’d dumped their coats somewhere near the door but Shane doesn’t recall hanging them up. He doesn’t really recall anything from the last half hour apart from Ryan’s lips and Ryan’s body and how they tangle up with Shane’s lips and body. He thinks kissing Ryan might actually be making him dumber. By the time they actually fuck he might have to hand his GED back.

“Average height for Lilliput, maybe.” Shane says, pulling his own sweater off.

He pauses, wondering if he should take his t shirt off as well, but that seems kind of presumptuous. But then, he did just sort of throw Ryan onto his bed so maybe-

Fuck it, Shane thinks and whips his t shirt off, dumping it over the side of the bed and lying back. Ryan grins at him, his big dark eyes gleaming.

“Giving me a show?” Ryan asks.

Shane laughs a little self consciously.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t call this a show.” He says, gesturing to his pale chest.

“Looks pretty good to me.” Ryan says, crawling across the bed to straddle Shane’s lap.

Shane takes the hint, his hands settle back on Ryan’s hips and he pushes Ryan’s t shirt up, exposing his firm, flat stomach. Ryan does most of the work, from then on, as Shane sits mesmerised by the inches of perfect skin Ryan is steadily revealing as he tugs the cotton up his torso.

Now this, Shane thinks, is a show, as Ryan exposes his toned chest, before ducking his head slightly to rip the t shirt off fully. Shane takes in the full effect of Ryan’s incredible arms, coupled with his bare chest and that lovely, sunlight smile of his.

“Jesus Christ, Ryan, you’re beautiful.” Shane says, before he can engage his brain.

He’d been determined not to run his mouth off, to keep this light and pretty casual, because he doesn’t actually know what Ryan wants yet. Saying Ryan’s ass looks good in his jeans is one thing. Calling a guy ‘beautiful’ is about as far from casual as you can get without actually fucking proposing.

He expects Ryan to tell him to fuck off or, worse still, laugh at him.

Instead Ryan flushes and looks sort of embarrassed, but mostly happy.

“Yeah?” He asks, softly, his voice at odds with all that muscle.

“Yeah.” Shane says, because now isn’t the time for joking around, and besides, Ryan is beautiful. It’s almost an objective fact at this point.

Shane pulls Ryan down into a deep, tender kiss. His dick is practically aching at this point, but he kisses Ryan slowly, taking his time, letting himself get lost in it. Ryan is making needy little sounds, and he practically whines when Shane strokes firmly down his spine with the flat of his hand.

“Can’t believe that you haven’t said my jeans would look better on your bedroom floor yet.” Ryan murmurs.

“Hey, Ryan?” Shane says.

“Yeah?” Ryan asks, the laugh already present in his voice.

Shane leans in close.

“Take your fucking jeans off already.”

Ryan laughs, and starts to unzip, but he’s laughing a little too hard to manage more than that. The angle is also a little weird, as Ryan has gone from straddling to Shane to lying on top of him, so he’s left sort of wriggling around. Shane thinks this is adorable and that he has to do something real quick because the sight of Ryan willingly getting undressed for him, combined with the wriggling, is making him so hard that a slight breeze might bring him off. And he doesn’t want this to be over too fast.

Shane pulls Ryan down, hooks a leg around Ryan’s hip and cradles Ryan’s head with one hand as he rolls them over. Ryan blinks up at him, his big dark eyes even bigger and darker than they were before. Shane takes over the ‘getting Ryan’s pants off’ mission, and he has to say, he achieves his goal pretty efficiently, even managing to strip off Ryan’s socks. Ryan has nice feet, which isn’t something Shane has ever thought about anyone before. Shane doesn’t have a foot thing, it’s just that Ryan’s are nice.

God, he needs to get a grip.

Shane turns his attention back to the rest of Ryan, who has gone soft and pliant beneath Shane’s hands. Well, most of him is soft.

Shane’s fingers skirt along the edge of Ryan’s boxers, not quite dipping beneath his waistband. Ryan rolls his hips and gives Shane a beseeching look.

“How ya doin’ there?” Shane asks, because sometimes he’s a self-sabotaging asshole who can’t help but shatter a mood.

Rather than being annoyed Ryan’s look turns fond.

“Kinda hoping that you’re gonna take these off,” Ryan says, tugging at Shane’s jeans, “before I get denim burns all over me.”

“Oh, sorry, your highness.” Shane mutters, but he’s already kicking his jeans and socks off.

Shane tries to hide his nervousness by being quick. He’s not a lot to look at, not like Ryan who is fucking built for a guy with a psych degree.

Ryan is watching him avidly, though, and doesn’t seem to mind that the guy he’s been making out with is actually seventy percent leg. Shane doesn’t leave him much time for reflection though, because they are now both in their boxers, in Shane’s bed. Shit, as they say, is getting real.

He pulls Ryan in for another kiss, and slides his thigh between Ryan’s legs. Ryan lets out an impressive moan as Shane pushes his thigh up, gently rubbing at Ryan’s hardness. Ryan shudders and clutches at Shane’s shoulders, as Shane slowly drags his thigh back and forth.

“I’m-” Ryan gasps and then doesn’t finish his thought, just buries his face in Shane’s neck.

Shane tugs at Ryan’s waistband again and when Ryan nods, Shane pulls them down. Of course, Shane thinks, Ryan was always going to be as pretty there as he is everywhere else. He palms Ryan’s cock, stroking the head with his thumb.

“What do you want, Ryan?” Shane asks and Ryan blinks at him.

“You- you as well.” Ryan stutters out.

Shane strips off his own boxers and then rolls on top of Ryan, who makes an approving noise as Shane’s cock slides against his own.

“You’re fuckin’ huge.” Ryan slurs.

He sounds almost drunk, his pupils blown wide, his cock leaking steadily onto his belly.

“Thanks. Grew it myself.” Shane says, pressing a kiss to the corner of Ryan’s mouth, and then mouths his way along Ryan’s jaw.

Ryan laughs silently, his body shaking underneath Shane’s.

“Are you- do you even know how to be appropriate?” Ryan asks. His grin is so lovely, Shane almost doesn’t want to kiss it off his face. Almost.

He kisses Ryan deeply and loosely grasps both of them in his hand. It’s been too long for him to not rush this along, and he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anyone quite like he wants Ryan right now. Ryan seems to feel the same way, as he hooks one leg over Shane’s thigh, holding him in place as the rock together. It’s pretty messy and without much finesse and it’s so perfect. The hot, lovely slide of Ryan’s skin against his own is something Shane would be quite happy to feel forever.

He speeds up the motion of his hand, and he feels Ryan twitch slightly.

“You O.K?” Shane asks.

“Yes- close.” Ryan replies.

 Shane redoubles his efforts, determined to give Ryan the best damn sloppy handjob he’s ever had in his life. He licks his palm, takes hold of Ryan again and strokes him firmly, eliciting a breathy gasp.

“Yes- please-” Ryan hisses and Shane’s own cock gives a twitch at the sound of Ryan saying ‘please’ in that wrecked way.

Shane kisses Ryan’s neck, tasting salt on his skin and Ryan moans again. A few more firm strokes and Ryan stiffens, coming all over Shane’s hand and his own stomach. He moans his way through his orgasm, pressing his face into Shane’s neck.

Shane kisses Ryan’s cheek, his forehead, his brow and the tip of his nose as Ryan blinks his way through the haze of endorphins. Shane nearly says he’s beautiful again, but he manages to catch himself this time.

“You good?” Shane asks instead. Infinitely less romantic but way more practical.

Ryan nods and then looks rueful. “I swear I normally last longer than that.”

“Sure. You just wanted to be with me so bad.” Shane teases, wiping his hand on his own discarded boxers, before dumping them over the side of the bed. He turns back to Ryan and lies down next to him again, pulling him into an embrace.

“Yeah.” Ryan says, apparently too out of it to sass back.

Shane strokes Ryan’s hair and then kisses him again, gently. Ryan opens his eyes when Shane pulls away and looks at him, a slightly uncertain expression on his face. After a few seconds Ryan averts his eyes.

“You, uh- you want- I can-” Full sentences seem to be eluding Ryan.

Shane’s actually confused for a moment as to what Ryan even means, but then he remembers that he has a near excruciating hard on which hasn’t been dealt with yet.

“Oh! Yeah.” Shane says, “Have at it.”

Ryan’s uncertainty only seems to deepen.

“Do you want me to suck you off?” He asks.

Shane smiles at Ryan and reaches out touch his cheek.

“I’ll last like ten seconds and that doesn’t seem really worth your time. You wanna just repay the favour and make out some more?”

Ryan nods, but still doesn’t quite meet Shane’s eyes.

“Are you alright?” Shane asks, because Ryan just came but is tensing up, which is the exact opposite of what most guys do.

Ryan sits up a little and then starts babbling. “Yeah, are you sure you don’t want a blowjob? Because I can totally do that!”

“Ryan-” Shane tries to interrupt, but Ryan steams on through.

“It’s not a problem! I’m pretty good at it, apparently-”

“Ryan, that’s not-”

“Or you could fuck me?” Ryan offers, and then immediately buries his face in his hands and makes a frustrated sound.

“Shit, I’m sorry, Shane.”

Shane is alarmed. Shane is more than alarmed. Shane is downright fucking concerned.

“Ryan- what’s wrong?” Shane asks, and then starts to string things together.  He suddenly feels sick. “Shit, did I do something-”

Ryan lifts his head so fast that Shane is amazed he doesn’t pull something in his neck.

“No! No- I wanted all of this! You didn’t do anything, I just- shit- O.K. I just freaked out a little because I blew off there like a fucking virgin and that can’t have been great for you and I’m sor-”

“Woah there,” Shane says, holding up a hand like a crossing guard “you are not apologising for that, that was so hot.”

Ryan blinks at him. “It was?”

“Yeah! Jesus Christ, Ryan. That was a pretty big ego boost.”

Ryan blushes and looks down at his lap.

“Shut up.”

Shane thinks about teasing him a little more and then remembers the agitated tumble of words spilling out of Ryan’s mouth, and he figures being sincere and revealing a tiny bit more of his colossal crush can’t hurt.

“What, you don’t want to hear how sexy you look when you’re about to get off?” Shane asks, pulling Ryan into his lap.

Ryan moves into Shane’s embrace easily, his eyes wide and a little disbelieving. He sits on Shane’s thighs, his legs wrapping easily around Shane’s waist.

“You mean when I’m a bright red, sweaty mess?” Ryan asks.

“That is the sexy part, yes.” Shane says.

His erection, which had flagged somewhat during their conversation, has returned and then some. It’s not really a surprise to Shane that he likes having Ryan like this, and they could definitely make this position work, if Ryan ever suggests Shane fuck him again. Shane and his dick both figure that the ‘what are we?’ conversation can wait, though.

Ryan shifts a little, hooking one arm around Shane’s neck whilst reaching down to stroke Shane’s cock. Even the incredibly light touch that Ryan bestows is enough to have Shane buck his hips. Ryan laughs, delightedly.

“Been a while?” Ryan asks, and his tone, thank God, has lost that edge of self-consciousness. His words are teasing but his touch isn’t.

Shane would make a joke but all he can think about is how it is Ryan who is steadily jerking him off.

“Uhuh.” Shane says, not very coherently.

Shane figures that if he can’t talk properly he may as well use his mouth for something, and he leans forward and kisses Ryan again. Ryan’s mouth is soft and warm and so very sweet, and Shane isn’t going to last long either, not whilst Ryan’s hand keeps moving on him. In fact it only takes a few minutes before Shane can feel the familiar rush towards orgasm building.

Ryan mumbles encouraging words into Shane’s mouth and Shane’s fingers dig into Ryan’s hips. Shane is sweating the skin of his chest sliding against Ryan’s, as Ryan keeps working him. Shane grasps Ryan’s thighs and shifts him a little, pulling him closer. Shane looks down at Ryan’s hand on him and is amazed that Ryan himself is half hard again already. It’s the sight of Ryan’s obvious arousal, the wet heat of Ryan’s mouth against Shane’s own when Shane crushes their lips together and Ryan’s steady, perfect touch that send Shane crashing over the edge.

He doesn’t know if he’s loud or not- he tends not to be, as he’s always lived with other people. But he hasn’t come like that in a long while. Shane slumps against Ryan, feeling loose and sated and happy. Ryan laughs as Shane’s bigger frame overbalances them and tips them over, Ryan’s back against the mattress, his legs still tangled with Shane’s.

They doze for a couple of minutes, Shane pressing idle kisses to Ryan’s collarbone every now and then.

“Hey, big guy, any chance we could shower?” Ryan asks, tapping Shane on the shoulder.

Shane wants to tell him to wait until the morning but then he moves ever so slightly. If they wait until the morning all the mess between them will dry and be uncomfortable. It might even glue them together which would be super gross and awkward.

Shane grunts. “Ugh, I guess.”

He rolls off Ryan and then stands up, stretching.

“C’mon, I’ll even let you play with my rubber duck.” Shane says, holding out a hand.

Ryan stares at him for a moment, something soft and hopeful in his expression. He takes Shane’s hand and lets Shane pull him off the bed.

Instead of heading straight for the bathroom, Ryan catches Shane around the waist and tilts his face up. Shane doesn’t need telling twice, as he leans down to give Ryan a kiss that lingers. When they break apart Ryan gives him that unbelievable smile.

“What’s ‘your rubber duck’ a euphemism for?” He asks.

Shane grins. “You’ll find out in the shower.”

 

 

 

                                                                                               

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, I have, ironically, been working a lot of night shifts. And don't worry angst fans, I'm sure you've pinpointed that trouble is a-brewin. I made them happy, can't wait to ruin it (and then fix it again. Probably.)


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